The past two weeks were mostly spent creating and animating models for the game. The first model I made was the model for Jonathan. When thinking about creating the model for Jonathan I wanted to make the suit fit like a suit from the ’80s, while also making the fit sort of evocative of what I feel Jonathan is like. I wound up making the suit very loose-fitting, which is in line with what suits from the ’80s were like but also makes Jonathan look very little. I wanted to Jonathan to have the vibe of a kid who hasn’t grown into his suit yet. Next to Dracula, who I made much taller than Jonathan, Jonathan looks very young and a little oblivious, which is something I’m trying to emphasize with him.

Next, I made the model for Dracula. For Dracula, I wanted his suit to be much more form-fitting and modern. His suit is less accurate to what ’80s suits are really like, but I think will work well for Dracula. I want to hit this kind of dichotomy with Dracula where he’s simultaneously very old-fashioned and archaic but also somehow modern and aware of modern fashion and sensibilities. Luckily, I was able to refresh my modeling skills by the time I got to Dracula so I was able to make his model a little more easily than Jonathan’s.

In terms of animating these characters, I almost lost my marbles. I started by trying to rig the models with Mixamo, which has a free automatic rigging tool, but Mixamo’s auto-rigger was not exactly…well…good, and I could only export it in .FBX, which made editing it in Blender a little difficult. Additionally, all of the animations I was getting from Mixamo were very messy and full of noise for some reason. I then found out that Blender has a very, very easy-to-use rigging tool, so I switched to using that. Then, apparently in order to get the animations to look right I had to download the animations with the skin, which I don’t normally need to do, but that fixed the issue and now they’re both rigged and animated.

Lastly, I made a couple of key models that I didn’t have in my game yet. I started with the computer and then made the spiral staircase that goes up to the attic, which the player doesn’t have access to yet. These were very straightforward.