Here's proof that Francis is now able to run around in Unreal. I haven't yet been able to play him, there is something wrong with the textures (I think it might have to do with the upl files). I liked the way the run cycle turned out, he has a girly run, which suits the character.

The script

Below is the finished script, for which the dialogue has already been recorded in Ben's class. I had to cut it down a fair bit from the machinima version, which was SIX MINUTES long!!! I think it's better this way, more punchy. Considering time constraints, I have also sacked the Kim character, seeing as he/she only had one line of dialogue anyway. If I have time, I might put him back in, because having four characters is more realistic for the Big Brother scenario.

Exterior of house, establishing shot

VOICEOVER: Well, its been an interesting week in the big brother house, with tensions between Francis and Casper really dominating the house. Earlier in the week, a house meeting spiralled out of control after a discusssion about Francis’ cleaning of the bathroom.

Cut to FOUR housemates sitting at the table (or on the couch?)

FRANCIS: It’s fine, it looks clean to me, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

CASPER: It’s disgusting, there’s fingerprints all over the mirror, and all this hair clogged in the sink. And I don’t have to say who the only person with a beard is, do I?

ASHLEY: Guys, guys, calm down, come on. Francis, I think that Casper would appreciate it if you could clean just a little bit more frequently, do you think you could do that for us?

C: He’s just bloody lazy.

F: What did you say?

C: I said you’re lazy, you don’t pull your weight around the house

F: Well at least I don’t steal food, like some people I could mention.

C: That’s it, you LIAR! I’m sick of you. I summon the powers to curse you! Your first born child will be eaten by a giant snake and all your riches will turn to sand and melt into the sands of the desert.

F: (sob) You bastard (runs out)

(stunned silence)

A: God, Casper, was that really necessary? Way to spoil a house meeting. (walks out)

VOICEOVER: Later on in the week, a simple comment by Casper puts Francis over the edge, no doubt fuelled by the ‘curse’ incident.

Kitchen. FRANCIS is stirring a pot on the stove. CASPER walks up and stands next to him, peering into the pot.

CASPER: Hey man, what ya makin’?

FRANCIS: Risotto

C: Oh dude, I’ve gotta do the washin’ up later, don’t get all that stuff burnt on the bottom. Its always bloody impossible to get off.

F: What? What? You! Always going on about something, I’ve had enough of your shit. Maybe this will shut you up. I smite you!

Francis raises his arm and sends a fireball to Casper’s head, which bursts into flames.

CASPER: Aaaghhhh, Ooooghhh, Aaaaggghhh!

Cuts to a wider shot, CASPER is running around trying to put the fire out with his hands. FRANCIS stands watching with arms folded, laughing to himself. ASHLEY and KIM come rushing in

ASHLEY: What’s going on?

KIM: God Casper, haven’t you heard of stop drop and roll?

VOICEOVER: Lets cross now live to the diary room, where Casper is about to participate in this week’s nominations.

CASPER is sitting in the diary room facing the camera.

BIG BROTHER (voiceover):Casper, Who do you nominate for one point and why?

CASPER: Well firstly I want to nominate Ashley for flying under the radar, I don’t think he joins in conversations, and I don’t feel I’ve gotten to know him very well during my time in the house.

BB: Very good, who do you nominate for two points and why?

C: I want to nominate Francis because he smote me.

BB: And how does that affect you, as a housemate?

C: Um, I got burnt, he was trying to kill me?

BB: But he didn’t kill you?

C: No, obviously I’m al…

BB: What? So he didn’t even kill you? Your last chance, how do his actions effect YOU, not the other housemates, but YOU as a HOUSEMATE.

C: Well, I guess they don’t.

BB: This is your final warning, who do you nominate for 2 points for eviction and why!!!

C: Well, I suppose I’ll nominate Kim, for strategic reasons.

PAUSE

BB: You may return to the house.

Cut to graphic screen showing Francis’ head and name and ‘EVICT’ and ‘2SAVE’ numbers.

VOICEOVER: To evict Francis and send him directly to the underworld, call 19026EVICT. To keep Francis in the house call 190262SAVE and follow the prompts.

Heads for Ashley and Casper characters

I completed these a couple of weeks ago, but forgot to post them here. These are the head meshes for two other characters, Casper (top) and Ashley. The will have the same body as Francis, but I will change the colouring of the textures to differentiate them. I've almost finished unwrapping the uvs for these two heads, so I plan to have the textures completed today also. I need to find a way around having to skin all three bodies (if you just swap the heads, you lose the skin, because it involves going into the Editable Mesh or whatever). After I skin the Francis character properly, I will test a few different ways to do that. If worse comes to worst, I will just have to skin them each individually.

Progress on Francis texturing

So the Francis character is almost complete, just needs a bit of smoothing and slight tweaking of the textures. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and because of the colours, it looks ok Flat-shaded as well (which is a better approximation of how the character will look in Unreal (see below)).

Final zbrush models

I finished modelling this head in zbrush a while ago. I'm revisiting it now to use as reference for my texuring. I think I should also be able to literally use it for texturing - using sections of the screenshot image as an overlay in photoshop.

Importing the character mesh into Unreal

Today I managed to get my mesh into the unreal engine (using a default texture, as my character's texture is still in production) and have it run around using animations from a standard Unreal character. I learnt that it's fairly easy and quick to use the standard animations, but because they are designed with carrying guns in mind, they wont be suitable for my characters. Instead I need to design my own animations, and overwrite the standard animation sequences. The biped used in the UT file Male_Skeleton seems to work well with my character mesh, so at least it will save time there.

The only major problem with my mesh seems to be here (looking up his legs under the 'skirt'). The mesh deforms badly and also the seams don't appear to be welded. I should probably be able to fix this by adjusting the rigging. Also, Ive also managed to export a skeleton mesh inside my character mesh, which shows up at inopportune moments, this can be fixed easily by re-exporting the mesh. Will post up the texture shortly, when it's finished.

The finished mesh

Here is a screenshot of the finished mesh in 3dS max.