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Digital Creature: Assignment 2

Yosephine Vania Devi Larasati | n10129251

Giri

Giri or /giːriː/ is inspired by local folklore about a mountain spirit that roams around the most active volcano in Indonesia, Mount Merapi. Located in the centre point of Java island, it is still widely believed that the spirit has its legend that can’t be separated from the origin of the volcano itself.

Legend

According to the legend, Mount Merapi’s name was originally called Jamurdwipa mountain and located in the south side of Java island. This caused the island to lose its balance thus was nearly sunk. Because of that, heaven became unstable that the gods came into a decision to move the mountain to the centre of Java island. Meanwhile in Jamurdwipa, lived two mighty blacksmiths who resisted to relocate to another place, as they were in the middle of making a keris (local weapon). The process in forging metal is sacred and would cause bad luck as well as a disaster if something interrupts it. (Folktales and Fairy Tales, 2011)

Batara Guru, the god of all gods, decided to send two Gods and their strongest soldiers to pursue the blacksmiths. They were kindly offering the blacksmiths beautiful places to live. if only the blacksmith rushed their weapon-making. As the island was quickly sinking, the negotiation became an argument that led to a massive fight. At the end of the fight, the gods lost the most and fled back to heaven. Angered Bathara Guru then sent a god of wind to blow Jamurdwipa mountain to the centre of Java island. The mountain finally fell on the exact position thus killing the blacksmiths. Their spirits remained to roam on the mountain and became the guardian spirits of the mountain. Also, the furnace transformed into a crater. Later, the mountain became a volcano and renamed into Merapi which means "the one making fire” in Old Javanese language (Volcano Discovery, n.d.). The volcano is still active as it regularly erupts every few years and often emits earthquake.

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Characteristics

Local people believe that Merapi represents the balance of every nature elements: water, air, earth, and fire, also, it’s a home of many animals living in the jungle. Giri, which means a mountain in Sanskrit, is a personification of a mountain and a blacksmith. Altogether they make a giant made of rocks with the physical appearance of an old blacksmith.

Physical characteristic

Gigantic and extremely tall (approximately 12 metres)

Large strong arms and short legs

Square/rectangle body shape

Moves in a slow motion

Has old and intimidating appearance (due to he is over 2,000 years old)

Body made out of rocks with plants growing at some parts

Has glowing red eyes

Traits

Mostly calm and quiet but is capable to act violently when his home is disrupted

Compassionate towards nature and animals

Demands respect from human

Likes offerings from the local villagers

A mysterious guardian spirit that can only be seen by chosen people

Respectful

Protective towards the mountain forest

Wearing clothing from the 13th century.

Planning

Moodboard

I came into a decision into making a giant based on games character and short films such as Shadow of The Colossus and some League of Legends character. Besides that, incorporating volcano elements into a human character needs more than a few sketches before finalising. The initial idea was a flaming rock as if a volcano erupting, but that represents only anger and lacks facial expression. Finally, I decided to combine forest elements such as rocks, soil, and plants into a person.

Here are some silhouette sketches I made while experimenting with body shape and mass.

Silhouette sketches

We can see the progress of the body shapes from having lean body mass into round and heavy. The similarity is the head stays small comparing to the body to give an illusion of his extreme height. I want to give more attention to the weight and strength, so I chose some silhouettes with large arms or wide torso.

Clothes

Ancient Clothing of Majapahit (Civilization Wiki, 2013)

As for the costumes, it dates back to the 13th century during the golden age of Majapahit empire in Java. People normally wrapped a long cloth around their bottom part. As for men, the clothes were shorter than women and their hair was tied in a bun. Accessories such as armband and bracelet were also worn by during the time (Mentarisenja, 2008). This character will wear almost identical to traditional clothes but less in accessories.

Sketches

I sketched two versions of the giant whether he should be standing upright or hunching his back. The colour palette I use in this character design is blue and orange as the major colours, with green as a variation.

Here I tried to draw a beard with some references I gathered from Pinterest. I planned to have a stylised character with static beard where I won't have to animate it. Here I realised that most of the gigantic creatures in animations often have smaller nose comparing to average human (Which can be seen at Hulk and Thanos in Marvel’s franchise). Other features that I thought will cause some problems in facial rigging are hair, beard and moustache. So, in the final design, I keep the hair tied and short.

Hulk and Thanos in Avenger’s: Endgame (Sharma, 2019)

Designing the body was much simpler than I thought it would be. The rocks covering the body has cracks that I have to match with the muscle, so it will move freely. In the first turnaround, I added tree branches on his back, but it’s removed later on since it’s too complicated to model.

These two images at the bottom are used as a guide in Maya.

Front view

Side view

Modelling Process with Maya

I modelled the body and head separately. In this part, I kept having issues with modelling the hands, especially the fingers. Problems also occurred while modelling the head. I followed many 3D modelling tutorials on Youtube but ended up using a tutorial from Bharat as it is easier to follow. Other than that, I also made a silly mistake where I modelled the feet with four toes each, instead of five. This went unnoticed until I brought the model to Mudbox to be sculpted.

Sculpting in Mudbox

Since this is the first time sculpting using Mudbox, I found it easy to learn. I fixed the toes by flatting the surface then sculpt an individual toe. The stencils feature is helping in carving the rocks and cracks. However, when it comes to sculpting face, it needs more subdivisions to get more details such as facial wrinkles and hair. While sculpting in a high polygon count, I experienced where the polygon is overlapping. But this can be solved by constantly smoothing the surface.

Retopology

Retopology process took the longest amount of time in the entire process, other than rigging. It is important to start with the face that has many complex loops. Other thing to learn is to not use too many references of topology to avoid confusion and to have a consistent topology pattern. Here, I also separated head, eyebrows and facial hair.

Muscular system (YAWD, n.d.)

In retopologising the body, it is helpful to have muscle references so that will simplify the rigging part.

Modelling Teeth and Tongue

Adding details

In this part, I added extra loops at some parts of the body and modelled the cloth, belt, and bracelet. Since I feel dissatisfied of the hands, I remodelled it again. Also, I adjusted some vertices to refine the shape.

Body and Facial Rigging

Rigging part is the most difficult things in the entire process that often resulted in distortion in some parts of the model. Which can be resolved with weight painting. Unfortunately, this feature is not as simple as I thought. After I painted the model, Maya seems to automatically even out the weight distribution. So, it looks like Maya didn’t save the weight painting we did. The trick is to paint the same amount of weight value (add the same amount white pattern as we removed). Face rigging was also tricky that I needed to adjust the facial hair to move simultaneously with the face. For the moustache, I used wrap deformer to attach it with the face.

Texturing

The first time using Mudbox for texturing process, I found it simpler than Substance Painter. Lesser tools feature, but easy to get familiar with. I used many stencils in this part to create bump map for the rocks. 

7 different facial expressions

Animation Test

[Giri](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/giri-3f7ebf988ccf4ea48343082688eff834?utm_medium=embed&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=share-popup) by [yosephine98](https://sketchfab.com/yosephine98?utm_medium=embed&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=share-popup) on [Sketchfab](https://sketchfab.com?utm_medium=embed&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=share-popup)

References

FolkTales and FairyTales. (2011, December). The legend of Mount Merapi. Folktales and Fairy Tales http://wardiastina.blogspot.com/2011/12/legend-of-mount-merapi.html

Richard. (2013). Concept Art of Gajah Mada [Image]. Gajah Mada (Civ5). Civilization Wiki. https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Gajah_Mada_(Civ5)?oldid=210085

Senja, M. (2008, February 22). History culture of Majapahit. Tempat Sampah. https://mentarisenja.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/history-culture-of-majapahit-draft/

Sharma, V. (2019, January 24).  Endgame: Fan-Made Battle Gives Hulk His Rematch Against Thanos. Animated Times. https://www.animatedtimes.com/endgame-fan-made-battle-gives-hulk-his-rematch-against-thanos/

Volcano Discovery. (n.d.). Merapi volcano. Volcano Discovery. https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/merapi.html#:~:text=Send%20Volcano%20Report&text=The%20name%20%22Merapi%22%20from%20old,Marapi%22%20lies%20on%20Sumatra%20Island.

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KNB217 Digital Creatures Assignment 1

By Yosephine Vania Devi Larasati | n10129251

For this assignment, I decided to choose Jack from the folktale of a magic beanstalk. Since this is a well-known story for decades, I find it easier to identify the character and setting played in the story.

Jack and the Magic Beanstalk

Jack and the Magic Beanstalk is an English fairy tale. According to Joseph Jacob’s version (1890), this story revolves around the adventure of Jack, a boy living on a farm with his poor widowed mother. One day, his mother asked Jack to go to the market and sell their only cow there, since they run out of money to buy some food. In the market, thoughtless Jack met an old butcher that offered him a magic seed in exchange for his cow. Instead of selling it for some coins, Jack tempted to trade his cow for the seed. Knowing that Jack brought home a seed instead of money, his mother was angry and threw the seed outside. However, the bean grew overnight into a giant beanstalk where there is a castle upon it. Excited, Jack climbed the stalk to find the castle on the top and it was filled with magical animals and instrument which belong to a giant living in it. Realising that he needs goods to sell, he stole a magical hen that lays golden eggs and magical harp that can talk. Unfortunately, the harp began to scream for help and surprised the giant. The giant chased down Jack until he almost reached the ground, but Jack started chopping down the stalk that also crushed and killed the giant. The overall story takes place during the renaissance. The setting happened in the farm, market and a gigantic castle built for giants.

Jack

Jack is often described as a young man that is always taking advantage of any opportunities provided to him. The folktale also shows that he lives in desperation since he and his mother lived in constant poverty. From my personal view, I would describe Jack as a naive and reckless young man, yet caring about his family’s needs. Jack is very spontaneous, innocent, and easily tricked by an old man into trading his cow with what the man called it a magical seed. Not forgetting the fact that he is a farmer, he has a diligent personality.

Jack is physically skinny, due to living in poverty for a long time. He is a tall boy and his body barely shows any muscle, like a twig, I would describe. He weights very light that allows him to sneak into a castle without waking up the giant. His clothes are very simple and comfortable to wear for farming but seem quite dirty from going to the field often. Also, the clothes seem old since those are old clothes from his late father.

In summary, the characteristic of Jack is divided into two:

Personality traits:

Innocent and naive

Spontaneous

Somewhat stubborn

Taking for granted

Soft-hearted and devoted to his family

Physical characteristic:

Tall and skinny

Pale skin with noticeable sunburns

Extremely light

Round face (as he is still young)

Wearing old farming clothes that are lightly covered by dirt

Mood board

First thing, I gathered references based on style and body type that is relevant to the story. I love the idea of loose clothes with a belt that exaggerates his thin figure. However, since it is a low poly character, the clothes might be harder to animate the flow.

Experiment Drawing

After that, I began to draw the character concept based on the mood board. The first picture shows the characters line up consist of Jack, his mother, and the Giant. I love making a character comparison at first, so I know what will differentiate Jack among all of the characters.

Here is I draw rough sketches of Jack. From first glance, he looks like a scarecrow, which I found very interesting. I continued to explore his look by combining shapes.

I tried to combine shapes of circle, square, and triangle. I decided to use many circles for his head to show youth. Later on, I prefer a round shape for the eyes and the nose that emphasise his innocence, friendliness, and soft, while I was still playing around with the shape of the body.

Rough Silhouette

I narrowed down to 5 silhouettes that I find appealing and easier to create in low-poly.

Final decision, I found this very simple yet appealing. Just from the silhouette, this character seems clumsy and soft. I will develop this rough silhouette into a more unique character.

During the renaissance era, men were mostly wearing linen tunic that is belted at the waist and tight legging (Central Coast Renaissance Festival, 2019). The tunic was worn as an undergarment beneath outer clothes, such as cloak by upper class (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1998).

I tried to modify the clothing a little, such as cutting short the bottom part of the tunic. This makes Jack looks slender and gives clarity to his body shape. Creating a character turnaround sheet is not something new to me, yet still challenging no matter how many times I have done it. Especially, in a three-quarter view. Also, I am giving Jack a slightly crooked back.

Medieval and renaissance tunic (Larp Inn, 2019).

As for the colour palette reference, I am using a colour wheel and chose to use complementary colours with earth tones. Here, I combined blue and orange as well as adjusted the saturation to bring the two colours together.

Colour wheel sample (Lynton, 2018).

Coloured character turnaround

The image below here is used for reference in the modelling process. The character is drawn from the front, right, and topside view.

Modelling Process

The video below here shows the quick video of modelling the character from a cube.

Due to insufficient storage, I screen captured some stages after the recording. These are where I learned my mistakes.

1. Arm Twisting

I did not pay attention to the anatomy of the muscle. So I had to remake the arm and make a twist.

2. Face Topology

Modelling mouth and nose with the right loop pattern is complicated for me. I followed several other tutorial videos on the internet and other people’s work as a reference. Other challenges include modelling the face to look appealing while maintaining the polygons count to keep it under 1000, for example, changing the hairstyle to be much simpler than the original design.

Overall, I did not find any problems with the UV map process, everything went smoothly. Until I painted the model using Substance Painter. Painting hair surprisingly became the most difficult thing. I mostly do realistic style rather than stylised, so it took a while for me to get accustomed to the painting process. I mostly used polygon fill feature in Substance Painter at first, then added more details(dirt, and collar) using brush.

Rigging Process

First time using Advanced Skeleton 5, many things happened in the process. There are a few steps that I have to repeat until the model can move properly. One of them is the eyeballs that are stuck with the head model and won’t rotate by themselves. Resolved it by fixing the connection between the joint and the geometry. Another problem I had was the knees bend backwards. Turned out that my model’s legs were slightly bending backwards and Advanced Skeleton automatically generated inverted knees.

Animation Test

Final Render

Jack by yosephine98 on Sketchfab

In summary, I am satisfied with the design of the character. Even though the execution of building the 3D model does not meet my expectation. There are many things I have to fix in my model. In the future, I am excited to build another model with better design and 3D model.

References

Central Coast Renaissance Festival. (2019, May 24). How did people dress in renaissance England. Central Coast Renaissance Festival. https://ccrenfaire.com/how-did-people-dress-in-renaissance-england/

Jacobs, J. (2003). Jack and the beanstalk. English Fairy Tales. http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-15.html

Larp Inn (2019). Guy Tunic. Larp Inn. https://www.larpinn.co.uk/guy-tunic-brown-p-6496.html

Lynton, J. (2018, 29 May). Close to my heart color wheel [Image]. Make it from your heart. https://blog.closetomyheart.com/2018/05/29/color-theory-double-complementary-color-schemes/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (1998). Tunic. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/tunic-clothing