I. Introduction
This article will introduce the design and production of character modeling and animation in third-person game design.
2. Character
Characters in games usually consist of models and animations.
1. Model
The character models in the game can be simply divided into models, materials, lighting and shadows. Because I am a game designer who prefers programming, I tend to focus on materials and design when it comes to modeling. The difficulty usually encountered in modeling is how to generate the model. Unless you do it yourself, you have to find materials.
2. Animation
In the production of 3D games, animation is much more complex than models. In addition to matching the animation with the actions of the game simulation, there are multiple projects that need to be taken care of, including animation clips, animation controllers, skeletons, motion, blending, blending trees, and layers. There are also many tips to think about in each project.
3. Model
Models are basically divided into self-made and materials. There are many free and paid materials on the Unity Assets Store. If you just want to make games without making a profit, there are more second-generation or fan-made models to choose from, which can also attract related traffic.
1. Model
The number of faces is an important concept for models. If the game only has humanoid characters, then you don’t need to care too much about the number of faces. If the game is full of humanoid characters, you need to think about whether the number of faces of the model will affect the performance of the game. Most novice developers or small game developers won’t need to think about this, but it will make a difference when testing.
2. Material
The material selection of the model is a big subject, including color, refraction, transparency and other items that can be designed, and many material pictures such as material patterns, reflective images, and concave and convex images can be optimized. Regarding material design, it can basically be divided into two directions, which are more realistic or more cartoon-oriented. Their respective focuses will be different from the above-mentioned production design.
3. Light
We encountered a problem when making an anime-style game. We used Viror to model the game, and the related plug-in package couldn’t access light and shadow for unknown reasons, causing the character to be very bright. After testing, it was found that the degree of light and shadow consumption is very low, so when designing models and materials, remember to take the absorption and reflection of light and shadow into consideration.
4. Animation
In third-person games, the appearance of the character is very important. If it is a third-person action game, the combination of character animation and controller is even more important. Next, we will briefly introduce some knowledge and concepts you need to know to make Unity third-person animation.
1. Animation Clip
In Unity, the unit and file format of each animation is Animation Clip. In a single animation file, you can adjust the animation playback frame, speed, mode, loop, etc. Every third-person action game is composed of an animation clip. An animated clip is composed, connected, and layered with each other.
2. Controller (Animation Controller)
A controller (Controller) needs to be placed in the animation editor (Animator). Each controller manages the editing of different animation clips. The connection and speed of each other are stored in the controller. When animating only the timeline, there is no need to consider controller placement.
3. Skeleton (Avatar)
The core file of animation is the skeleton. The matching skeleton can connect the animations of different models. The specialized skeleton can make the animation make the most suitable action. In the third-person controller, a small change or swing range of the animation can It will have a great impact on the experience, and the skeleton is the support and node.
4. Motion
When animation needs to drive the operation of the program, Motion will be checked for animation design. This is rarely done in third-person controllers, but a game animation produced with Motion will completely match the scene, but the control and production There will be a lot of obstacles when it comes up, so it is more suitable for pure animation and game types.
5. Blend
When animation clips are connected with each other, a line will appear, moving from one animation clip to another. This process is called blending. Blending has many settings, including start, end, blending speed, animation offset, etc. Wait, blending is the core concept of animation.
6. BlendTree
In the third-person controller, idle, walking, running, and sprinting are the core operations. Mixing well-adjusted animations with an animation clip will be very time-consuming, so the blending tree appears, ranging from linear changes to planar changes. The influence of parameters on animation blending, etc., can all be produced using blending trees.
7. Layer
When making animation, if the character’s upper body needs to shoot and the lower body needs to run or walk, using independent animation clips will result in many permutations and combinations; using layers can allow the upper and lower body skeletons to receive different animations, using the upper layer Cover the underlying layers and plan the use of each other’s skeleton.
8. Physics Simulation (Simu)
When the player moves, the clothes or cloth will simulate movement as the player moves. This is not an animation. It is more like letting the skeleton simulate physical collision. Unity has an official cloth plug-in, and stores also sell magic clothes and other related cloth simulation or Physics simulation is available.
5. Mixamo
If you just want to make a third-person mini-game or practice your skills, in addition to looking for resources in the store, you can also use Adobe’s free website Mixamo, which is very suitable for novices. It seems to be a website used by Adobe to promote its own brand.
1. Free
The animation and model can be freely used in commercial or non-commercial works. If you create a relatively complete thing, you don’t have to worry too much.
2. Modeling
There are many models to choose from, ranging from fantasy to realistic characters.
3. Animation
There are a lot of animations that can be used. By combining and cutting various animations, you should be able to assemble prototypes or concept animations for any game production and development.
Six, Postscript
I have been procrastinating writing this article for almost a month, and I have been in a very bad mental state recently. In addition to being busy with my master’s degree and project issues, I felt very tired and wanted to rest. It was not what I wanted to force my team members to produce, so I could only work hard on my own and hope that there would be a good product in the end, which would be great.
