Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Creating 3D Content for Games 3

Part II: Creating Interfaces, Modeling Scenery, and Texturing Backgrounds 3

Part III: Designing, Modeling, and Animating Game Characters 4

Part IV: Animating Game Cut Scenes 4

Part V: The Part of Tens 4

Icons Used in This Book 4

Part I: Creating 3D Content for Games 5

Chapter 1: Getting Started with 3D Game Animation 7

This Whole Place Is Full of 3D - Identifying 3D Game Elements 8

User interfaces 8

Backgrounds 9

Scenery and props 10

Characters 10

Cut scenes 11

Opening the Toolbox - the Tools Used to Create 3D Game Animations 11

Modeling, rendering, and animation software 12

Paint and texturing software 15

Compositing software 15

Hardware requirements 15

Creating 3D Games - Slightly More Complicated Than a Connect-the-Dots Puzzle 16

Game design 16

Art design 17

Integration 17

Testing 17

Learning the Big Picture 17

Chapter 2: Game and Art Design, and Creating Storyboards 19

Documenting the Game Design: What Exactly Does This Game Do? 20

Brainstorming 20

Gathering feedback 20

Writing a Game Design Document 21

Adding flowcharts 21

Obtaining approval 23

Growing Ideas into Design - Beginning the Art Design Phase 23

Sketching inspirations: You didn't throw away your pencils, did you? 23

Compiling reference materials 24

Fleshing out details, and producing final designs 25

Labeling details 25

Creating Storyboard Documents 25

Types of storyboards 26

Specifying logical flow paths 26

Storyboarding cut scenes 27

Creating a master storyboard 27

Who's Talking Now? Adding Dialogue 27

Chapter 3: Starting with Traditional Animation Basics 29

Layering Images - the Simplest Animation Technique 30

Look at the Birdie and Smile - Focusing the Audience's View 30

Avoid complex motions 31

Displaying anticipation of intended motion 31

Emphasizing motion with exaggeration 32

Making foreground objects stand out 32

Do You Have a Good Stopwatch? Controlling Timing and Pacing 32

Establishing correct timing 33

Establishing pacing 34

Do I Need to Draw Every Frame? Accomplishing Efficient Animation Techniques 34

Posing characters and in-betweening 34

Using animation loops 35

Panning images 35

Animating Realistic Motions 36

Animating physically realistic reactions 36

Making realistic motion with primary and secondary motion 36

Developing a Unique Style 37

Part II: Creating Interfaces, Modeling Scenery, and Texturing Backgrounds 39

Chapter 4: Creating Game User Interfaces 41

Understanding the Basics of Interface Design 41

Identifying interface information 42

Defining interface backgrounds 43

Using interface fade in and fade out 43

Making the interface easy to navigate 43

Including sounds 44

Making the game area as big as possible: Maximizing interface real estate 44

Starting with a Layout: The Process of Interface Design 44

Importing drawing files 45

Building a 2D layout 45

Adding 3D Effects 54

Enhancing with 3D objects 54

Embellishing with 3D text 55

Beveling the interface border 57

Chapter 5: Modeling Scenery and Props 59

Discovering 3D Space All Around You 60

Moving about 3D Coordinates 60

Selecting scene views 61

Navigating scene views 62

Using coordinate values 64

Exploring the Various Modeling Types 65

Polygon modeling for man-made models 65

NURBS modeling for natural flowing surfaces 65

Patch modeling for curved surfaces 66

Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects 66

Transforming objects 66

Snapping objects into place 67

Aligning objects 70

Using pivot points 72

Learning the Art of Modeling 73

Using the easiest way to model 73

Starting with building blocks 75

Editing primitives 77

Building surfaces from curves and splines 78

Creating Lo-Polygon Models That Won't Choke a Game Engine 83

Tips for reducing polygon count 83

Automating polygon reduction 85

Chapter 6: Adding Details with Materials 87

Defining Materials 87

Color 88

Transparency 88

Reflectivity 88

Refraction 88

Luminosity 88

Specularity 88

Bump map 89

Assigning Material Properties to Objects 89

Changing the view shading 89

Using preset materials 90

Creating unique materials 93

Assigning Material Properties to Object Parts 95

Chapter 7: Mapping Textures 97

Wrapping Texture Maps about Objects without Messy Glues 98

Positioning Textures with UV Coordinates 100

Offsetting a texture 100

Scaling a texture 101

Rotating a texture 101

Tiling a texture 101

Creating Seamless Textures That Tile Together: Look Ma, No Seams 103

Creating noisy tiles 104

Filling a solid tile 104

Matching opposite edges 104

Creating Raised Texture with Bump and Displacement Maps 106

Using bump maps 106

Using displacement maps 107

Creating Realistic Environments with Textures 107

Using reflection maps 108

Adding a background image 109

Creating a skybox for backdrops 110

Painting on Textures to Add Dirt and Grime 111

Efficiently Coloring Objects with Vertex Colors 113

Baking Textures for Quick Model Loading 113

Chapter 8: Creating Effective Lighting 115

Starting with a Basic Three-Point Lighting Configuration 116

Exploring the Different Light Types 117

Point light 117

Area light 117

Direct light 117

Ambient light 117

Spot light 117

Creating Lights 118

Changing Light Properties 120

Using light color 120

Changing light intensity 120

Enabling shadows 122

Setting falloff 124

Using Light Special Effects 124

Adding lens flares 124

Adding fog 126

Making glowing lights 126

Creating Realistically Lighted Scenes with Raytracing, Radiosity, and Global Illumination 128

Raytracing 128

Radiosity 129

Global illumination 129

Creating a Prelighted Map for Quick Scene Loading 130

Part III: Designing, Modeling, and Animating Game Characters 131

Chapter 9: Techniques for Modeling Characters 133

Modeling Methods 134

Knowing when to buy instead of build 134

Creating low-polygon models 134

Using symmetry 134

Using a default stance 134

Using mesh smooth features 135

Modeling the Torso 135

Chamfering edges 137

Sculpting muscles 137

Cutting limb holes 141

Creating and Attaching Limbs 142

Tapering limbs 144

Lofting limbs 146

Connecting limbs 146

Bridging limbs 148

Modeling Hands and Feet 148

Extruding fingers 148

Adding a thumb 150

Modeling shoes 151

Creating toes 153

Adding nails 153

Connecting hands and feet 153

Mirroring the Body 155

Making the Body Proportional 156

Getting "Ahead": Creating a Head 158

Extruding a neck 159

Using Booleans 160

Modeling the windows to the soul: Creating eyes 161

Creating a nose 164

Creating ears 166

Creating a mouth 166

Adding facial hair 168

Sculpting the head 168

Creating Hair 170

Adding Accessory Props 170

Modeling clothes 170

Dressing a head 171

Adding jewelry 171

Embedding weapons and props 171

Chapter 10: Discovering the Basics of 3D Animation 173

Pacing an Animation with Frame Rates: What's the Going Rate? 174

Changing the frame rate 175

Setting the total number of frames 176

Moving the Time Slider to select a frame 176

Creating Simple Animations with Keyframes 177

Animating an object by creating position keyframes 177

Animating an object with rotation and scale keyframes 179

Creating an attribute keyframe 181

Locating keyframes with the Animation Controls 183

Copying and pasting keyframes 184

Automating the creation of keyframes with Auto Keyframing 184

Moving an Object Along a Path 184

Animating an object moving along a path 185

Tracking an object's motion with trajectories 185

Ghosting objects to get a sense of their motion 186

Using Animation Editors 187

Viewing animation graphs 187

Synchronizing animation keys 188

Chapter 11: Animating Characters 193

Rigging Characters to Move Realistically 194

Creating a skeleton that lies under the character 194

Setting constraints so the object doesn't move when it shouldn't 198

Controlling character motion with kinematics 199

Creating a Realistic Skin 201

Skinning a character 201

Setting a bone's influence 202

Adding deformations to create muscle bulges 203

Animating with Bones 204

Integrating Motion Capture for the Ultimate in Realistic Motion 207

Lots of dots: Motion capture hardware 207

Unique motion capture systems 208

Buying motion 208

Chapter 12: Animating Facial Movements 209

Creating Morph Targets: The Character of a Thousand Faces 210

Working on a...