Recently, as you may already know I have been studying and testing "Aurasma Studio", an online tool for Augmented Reality (AR) authoring. I am still exploring all kind of AR platforms. Aurasma is actually my choice at the moment, just because its ease of use, and accessibility.
I am thinking to create and animate all kind of 3D interactive characters that can be augmented if you have iPhone/iPad or Android Phone and Aurasma Lite app installed. This is really the current and a fun way to display your 3D model and animation. This is also a new way for storytelling.
The problem is of course, one cannot assume our audience have smart phones like iPhone or good Android phones, but anyhow, AR will be really popular in year 2013 up. Better start to get into it. Any 3D artist with experience in 3D Game Production actually should not have problem dealing with AR.
AR Contents creation is pretty similar to Game Production. So, knowledge for other tools like Unity is really beneficial. At the moment, AR is probably best for mobile media, so you have to treat the 3D model and animation with efficiency.
MODELING IN BLENDER
I always started in Blender, especially for this type of simple characters. I cannot spend too much time because I have to model, rig, animate, author, test the Augmented all in one go.
Of course, eventually I can have longer time on a project, but for blog post, I want to keep it simple.
I like to start using Skin Modifier in Blender. That is really my favourite way to model a character. Just like doodling or sketching.
This is Mr Teapot Head.
I use Maya for rigging and animation and also export to DAE. We probably need to wait until Blender Collada DAE is improved in incoming version. I believe current DAE should be fine for export into Aurasma.
RIGGING AND ANIMATION IN MAYA
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| I rig and animate in Maya, because I am more familiar with Maya Rigging and Animation. But this can be done using Blender too, no problem. |
For this one, I am actually using Aurasma advance feature called "Sequence Overlay", this allow for extra interactivity and multiple 3D overlays to go in non-linear fashion.
- Joint Animation works
- Object Transformation animation works
- Blendshape or Shapekeys works
- Material works
- UV Texture works
- You can have multiple lights
- No shadow yet
- No fancy material yet, but you can have diffuse, specular, etc.
- No particles yet
The final result is something like this, can be seen on my PuppetAR blog:
http://puppetar.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/requirement-aurasma-lite-app-for.html
YOUR TASK IS: Create Pixar Walking Teapot and Augmented Reality it maybe.
WHY IS YOUR WORK IS ALWAYS SO SIMPLE? CAN'T YOU MAKE A MORE COMPLEX OR REFINED WORK?
This kind of experiment is really nothing, I have to admit. It is embarrassingly "a child's play". But it is really also to show you: these tools are available and nothing stopping yout to get started.
This is a good exercise to keep your brain flowing and developing creative ideas. There are so much to explore with AR and Computer Graphics innovation, outside of 3D Film and Game Industry (that are pretty much over-saturated.).
Today = simple fun works to test the tools. Tomorrow = a more complex refine works.
Well, in the big picture, I personally really like to do creative interactive 3D motion graphics works like this guy Toshiyuki Inoko and his TEAM LAB NET Tokyo, Japan. This guy is amazingly genius, of course, his mind is really tuned on OTAKU culture and he has high believe in the new media and computer graphics.
How I wish I could work in a creative environment like TEAM LAB NET one day. Anyhow, Mr.Toshiyuki Inoko and TEAM LAB NET is inspiration of the day.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TEAMLABNET?feature=watch
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