Here I document how I added animations to this 3D model from Mixamo with animations pulled from Annie’s live Mocap recording. I imported the 3D model files and extracted the models embedded textures and materials. I set the models rig type to humanoid. I imported the animation files and also set their rig type to humanoid.
Then I created a new animation controller, added a new state and assigned the animation file to the state. Then I assigned this controller to the models animation controller input.
Then all I had to do was position the camera correctly and hit the play button, and the model began moving. Here is a screenshot from the model in motion.
This is our AR 3D detective game. Me and Macy worked on this using Unity and Vuforia. The theme we used was Among us, the game where you are astronauts on a spaceship and everyone must work together to work out who is the Imposter alien crewmate and finish the game before the they kill every innocent player. Here you can see the 9 different images we trained the Vuforia software Unity plugin to recognise. These are the different Crewmates. Each trained image has the Crewmate 3D model that will appear rendered over the top, as well as the text to identify whether this Crewmate is Innocent or an Imposter. The Imposter also has a large knife that appears with the other 3D elements, like in the game, which Macy 3D modelled.Here you can see I used Maya to create the two 3D models for the text to identify the characters as Crewmate or Imposter.This is the knife that Macy modelled to display when you find the murderous imposter.Here you can see some of the final results using the Vuforia AR plugin. You have all of the Crewmate images, and you must find which is the Imposter by revealing the identity with the AR render.The plugin can distinguish between all the Crewmates at once. Here is another Crewmate.And finally here is the Imposter, displaying with red text and the knife model.
To begin my Maya modelling practice, I wanted to pick a design that would be reasonably simple, but also featuring some geometry that would push me none the less, so I chose a treasure chest.This was after a few hours of working with Maya. This was my third try, as I used some questionable techniques that lead to some complex issues with the overall geometry and I didn’t like the overall look of how it was going. With the knowledge I had gained, I started again and stretched a cube out to a tall cuboid. I almost exclusively used edge loops to add more data points, more vertices, and then the scale tool to scale different groups of vertices, to slowly change the shape. I rounded the top of the chest along its depth and tapered the width slightly too. As I gathered confidence, I added more detail, indenting the centres of each panel. I extruded faces from edge loops on the sides to create a lock shape and handles. I used scaling to indent around the lip of the lid.Here I wanted to work on fixing some broken geometry that had come from adding vertical edge loops on the sides and then scaling down the width. This made the top of the sides of the lids come to a thin ledge instead of continuing the thick bevel. At the top a lot of vertices came together very close and in strange ways, which could have been avoided if I had planned the extrusions and scaling of different areas at the right times. To fix this top section, I have split the model in to, to help with having to do this process twice.Here you can see the strange thin ledge at the top of the side of the lid.Here is the start of my attempt to heal some of the strange polys, and now the top of the sides has more structure and better geometry to allow me to finish the bevel around this area.I had to remove all the faces in the area where the vertices were very close together. I used edge extrusions and vertices welding to move new faces over the delete spaces, and adjust the geometry to be more suitable for the model in that area.
When using 3D models in game engines, to reduce overall rendering tax in realtime, the models can be used in an efficient manor, even beyond just their poly count.
In efficient 3D game design, one singular model can be rendered once but told to used in a variety of ways in the scene, so that the overall impression is one of more complexity, but still using less rendering power.
This is a model kit of many modular components for building a futuristic city with many different building blocks. Kits like this allow designers to create complex and large environments more easily, and makes the rendering more efficient as the environment is broken down into pieces to be rendered in different ways and at different times.
Also, large models can be divided into smaller pieces to render individually and be used modularly, so the same models can be repeated over and over to give the impression of one larger model.
Here is an example of a set of models ready for rendering that allow a designer to create many different types of similar buildings, all using the same library of simple building blocks. This will reduce the overall modelling complexity and scale, allow for simplification and yet versatility in the scene. All while giving the impression of a much more complex scene and collection of models, and importantly reducing the rendering load too.
This is a 3D model from Sketchfab, which has a very high poly count, and many many tiny polygons in areas of detail like the eyes, face and hands.Here you can more clearly see the incredibly high level of detail that has gone into this model. The model has 165.7k quads and 331.3k total triangles. This would not be efficient for running and rendering in realtime for a game engine. The more economical the mesh density, the less taxing it is going to be on the machine running it. This would would be less problematic for an animation where the rendering does not need to be rendered in realtime.These are some other models that I found, which have a much lower complexity and lower mesh density, which are much more suitable for realtime rendering in a game engine as the efficient modelling is less taxing on the machine.
