A closer look at the most up to date Samer Khatib Character Model.

     Before we get into it, for new readers, there was a time when I posted almost daily on this blog. And from time to time, I would post in a separate section on here called "Making Of..."  which would usually be a post dedicated to showing a breakdown and the process that went into one of my models. I create 3d models ranging from props, characters, environments, etc. Just about anything almost on a daily basis. I consider myself primarily a 3D guy. More so than a game developer actually. Sometimes I've been asked the question of "what would you be doing if you didn't make games?" - I'm pretty sure I would be working just as a 3d artist or I would still be doing something 3D work-related. Maybe build a youtube channel with animated shorts and animated series based on ideas I have for games? It's crossed my mind before. Anyway, if you know me, you know I love 3D stuff. I love computer graphics, looking at 3d models, looking at wireframes, texture work, etc. I'm just really big on computer graphics and have been obsessed with 3D modeling and 3D graphics since I was a kid with an N64.

     Out of all the character models I have ever created, this character specifically is probably my most important one. With upcoming titles from my new, flagship video game series "Samer Hills" in the works, I think now is a great time to share a behind the scenes look at the Samer Khatib character model. The starboy himself. The cover character of the Samer Hills franchise. A character model that you will see and play as for years to come in many future games from me. The Snowconesolid Productions equivalent of Super Mario and Micky Mouse.

Version 1 (2017) Model

     Brief History: Before we get into it, I just want to say that this post will actually be the third time I cover this character model. If you're interested in seeing how it all began check out this post: Samer Version 1. If you wanna see where it went, check out this post: Samer Version 2. If you wanna know how it's going, then keep reading here. The Samer Khatib character model is that one character model that always receives updates. I have had big plans for this character since it's inception. This model originally started as a sloppy sketch on paper and version 1 of the 3d model was made all the way back in 2017. I have always had plans to create a video game series surrounding a Samer Khatib character for as long as I could remember. Samer Khatib has appeared in a couple of videos on my youtube channel and, as of this post, he has appeared in two of my currently released games. A cameo in Giraffe Town marks the character's very first in-game appearance. Samer later appears in "The Debug"  but this time as a playable character. His appearance in The Debug is brief and doesn't really let the player explore the character's abilities however, this small appearance marks the first time that the Samer Khatib character is actually playable. If you're reading this years from now in the future. The Samer Khatib character model would have been in many different titles. Playable in dozens of games by now better known as the "Samer Hills" series. Check them out.

     Anyway, this character model has seen many changes over time. I think I have revised and redesigned this model more times than all the changes Mario and Sonic's character designs have gone through. So, obviously, this model in particular is very important for me to get just right. And with the newest version I'm talking about today, I'm pretty content with the quality, design, and everything overall. For now, that is. Let's take a closer look.

     Here are some better shots of the wireframe for this model. And, as a 3d nerd, I think things like wireframes of a model are super interesting. Anyway, if you compare this model to older versions of it, the first thing you will probably notice is how much cleaner it is. It's a small thing for some, but for me, I practice having good topology in all of my models. The topology of a 3d model, especially a character model is very important. Keep things clean and organized. Add loop cuts where necessary and manage each poly with care. I basically rebuilt the entire body from the ground up. The previous one was incredibly unorganized, sloppy, and horrible with the character's rig. I decided to simply start fresh and remodel Samer's body from scratch. As for the head and face of the model,  I was always pretty satisfied with that. Just needed a few minor tweaks. I didn't remake his head from scratch because I didn't want to risk changing the model too much and I think the Samer head has already been established as this iconic, recognizable character that can easily be identified with Snowconesolid Productions. Since the head is a smaller part of the mesh it was much easier to go back into it and clean it up. You probably won't notice a difference when comparing the head on this model to an older version, but it has been drastically improved overall in many ways. The eyes, cheeks, nose, hair, ears, mouth, and insides have received a really nice update and bump in quality.

Full, 5 finger hands

     Additional changes on the body finally include hands with 5 fingers. The original Samer Khatib as well as previous variations of the model always only included 4 fingers. I don't know why I originally only gave him 4 fingered hands. Again, it's a small change that I bet most people didn't even notice on the Samer model as seen in Giraffe Town. But changes like these are important for me and giving the model a proper set of hands was a must. One more thing, the hand isn't just an updated mesh with an extra finger. Now, in the latest version of the Samer model, his hands are actually fully rigged and animated. They can open, close, grab, etc. Previous versions of the model did not have rigged hands and fingers. The hands always stayed in the same static pose. A fully rigged hand really adds an extra layer of life to the model and I am pleased with it.

Shiny new rig

     Samer's character rig is also completely new. With the new mesh, improved topology that is now properly designed with a layout to support good character rigging, I didn't hesitate to also toss out the original rig. The original one had many issues and was poorly mapped to the model despite having fewer bones than this new rig. It didn't deform the model properly and just looked really bad in certain angles. As a matter of fact, in Giraffe Town, whenever Samer was on screen, I always made sure to have the camera facing his "good sides", which are areas that deformed properly that is. In some cutscenes, if look at the model from different angles, it's deformation is really messed up. Anyway, this new and improved rig fixes all the deformation issues I had on the original model and basically just works perfectly. This custom rig also adds many new features specifically for the Samer Khatib model. Fully rigged hands for example. The really nice new feature that I added is actually a rig for Samer's hair.

Animated hair

     I've always appreciated video games that took the time to animate the character's hair if they had any. The older version of this model had this stiff hair as if it was glued to his head. With my new and improved rig, this finally changed and now the Samer Khatib character model finally has luscious, beautiful, flowing hair that dances majestically in the light wind. I don't have a gif at this moment to show an example of what I want to say next, but you will see this in the actual games eventually. Anyway, Samer's hair is actually dynamic. So, it will flow with you when you are running. If the game has stronger winds, Samer hair will flow to match the speeds or, if you're inside for example, and not moving, Samer's hair will barely flow depending on if there is any wind or not. So, just a little something I'm proud of.

4K Textures

     Onto the texturing and shading work. Just like modeling, texture work is very important to me and it's something that took me years to finally get good at. Before, I used to simply just take a texture, slap it onto a model, and call it a day or just use basic colors for things such as skin. It didn't look bad, but it didn't look, I guess professional either. It didn't have that "wow" quality to it to make it stand out. My texture work was missing something and that something was consistency. I'm kind of speaking in general in regards to this topic and not just about my Samer Khatib model. But, I would say that the texture work is more important than the actual 3d models themselves. The textures could either make or break your game's/animation's graphical presentation. So, what happens when you just take textures and slap them onto 3d models? You lose consistency. There's no sense of art direction or style. It's just a mess. Each photo texture you use most likely has different lighting, is off, or just doesn't match with the model or universe of your production in general. Also, it looks like the same stock texture that you've probably seen in a bunch of other games and it probably is. In order to maintain a strong and consistent art direction, the texture work needs to be able to blend everything. All elements of the game or animation or scene, etc together. These days, I actually spend more time on the texturing than the actual model. I work hard to ensure that the texture's on all my models are unique, fit the particular model, and more importantly, are able to blend in with the rest of the production. I think texturing is more of a smaller piece to a much bigger puzzle and when doing texture work it's good to also think about how it would be presented not just on the specific model, but in the game world itself. Anyway, I was starting to just ramble there. Back to the Samer Khatib model, he now sports a high res 4K texture with improved skin, hair coloring as well as detailed elements such as wrinkles on the clothes, grooves in the hair, lines on the shirt, etc. Speaking of clothes, this brings me to my next topic. Different costumes and clothes.

Samer's NEW default red and black suit.

Winter

Halloween

Boxers

     As you can see, I designed the Samer Khatib character model to be extremely customizable. Knowing that I'm going to be using this character model in numerous different games, I needed to make sure that I had reusability in mind when designing the model. I created this character in such a way that lets me easily customize, build off of, and create new things specifically for this model. The above images are just a few examples of the many different costumes that Samer can sport. Over time, as more Samer Hills games come out, you might see Samer in a different unique piece of clothing or wearing something that matches the theme of the game. For example, in Samer Hills Hollow Jack (which as of this blog post is currently in development), instead of the default suit. You will see Samer wearing his vampire Halloween costume. These different costumes for the model are built from scratch, but once again, because of how I set up this model and took the steps beforehand to properly prepare it. I can easily create a new wardrobe that just instantly works with the character. For example, check out this custom Feed Me Billy costume I created for the Samer Khatib model:

Feed Me Billy Costume

     You won't actually be able to get this specific costume in any of the Samer Hills games. This one was just for fun. But it's a really good example showcasing the customizability of my Samer Khatib character model as I was able to create this new set of clothes pretty quickly. Anyway, for context, if you aren't familiar. This costume is based on a game called "Feed Me Billy" by developer Puppet Combo. In Feed Me Billy you play as a serial killer who must feed a hungry hole in the closet. It's a great game and a personal favorite of mine. I recommend it. Puppet Combo is a super cool game developer that I really look up to. Their works have definitely served as inspiration for me as well as motivate me to continue to improve and grow in my own game development career. So, definitely check out this developer if you haven't. You can follow Puppet Combo on Twitter over here: @PuppetCombo and you can support them on Patreon at this link: www.patreon.com/puppetcombo 

Feed Me Billy by Puppet Combo

     Finally, the most important thing for the Samer Khatib character model is his unique array of facial expressions. 

     Originally seen in Giraffe Town as "the only character with different facial expressions" - This feature has become a key staple for the character. Samer Khatib is also better known as the man with many facial expressions and when working on this new version of the model, I made sure that there would be no shortage of that. This character is supposed to be very expressive and very animated to contrast the world that he's in which is Samer Hills of course. And this is something cool because in the types of games I am making, I can use Samer's facial expressions as a tool to better communicate with the player. For example, I can have the Samer character react differently depending on where the player is in the game or, what the player is doing. If danger is near by, the Samer character can get maybe this nervous look, and if the player sees that, they will know that they are in danger. Or if the player is near a certain item he can display some other emotion and so on. His expressions really tie in with my game designs and instead of a hud or annoying sound or something, the character's physical appearance serves as a display to communicate information to the player.

     Samer has a wide range of different emotions and I can't wait for you to see them in the Samer Hills games. 

     I may not be a 3D master and I can definitely still learn and improve further. With that said, over the years, as a 3d artist, I personally feel that I have greatly grown and learned a lot. What started as a hobby that I picked up way back in high school has become something that is routine for me and my love for 3D artwork and computer graphics continues to grow. Man, this stuff is just so cool.

     It's been a while since I wrote one of these "making of" type posts. As a matter of fact, I've noticed that I have been doing blog entries much more frequently again lately and I'm pretty happy about that. Just like creating games or 3d models, this blog has always been another outlet for me. I used to blog almost every day years ago when I was still new to game development. A younger version of myself. I have missed doing it. So, it's pretty nice to kind of re-ignite and find joy in an older hobby like this. Thanks again for reading and stay tuned for more soon. Bye-bye for now.

I made this turtle... His name is Frog.

Found my HAPPY ZEN place.

Was bored the other day. Cracked open Blender3d and created a new character. Made this turtle you see here. His name is "Frog".

Early WIP Blender Renders

Why is his name Frog? Isn't it a turtle?

Final Model In Unity Engine.

Look at that constant facial expression it has. So chill. So relaxed. This turtle is obviously either super high or really drunk to the point where he doesn't even know what he is. So... lets just call him Frog from here on out. My newest character. Frog the turtle.

Also, I made it possible to customize his skin for unlimited color variations and combos!

What am I doing with my life.......................

Making of the "Samer Khatib Show" (COMPLETE PROJECT!)

I rarely post these "Making Of" articles because it is too much effort and I am very lazy to write up a huge long post. However, I always enjoyed behind the scenes types of things. Reading articles about how something was created, watching people speed modeling or speed drawing, documentaries of a games development cycle, etc. I always found these interesting, entertaining and informative. I enjoy seeing other peoples workflows and today I will share mine. 

Recently I posted a very short animated video to my YouTube channel called 

"The Samer Khatib Show"

The final result

What is this?

The video starts off by showing a fairly bizarre looking TV talk show kind of set.

There are two couches which have wooden mannequins awkwardly sitting on them, a desk with the snowconesolid mascot (My Logo) and radio sitting on top, and a bunch of misplaced props such as trees, bushes, and an odd looking vehicle in the background. The camera then cuts to the desk and virtual Samer Khatib (snowconesolid) quickly rises out from the ground. The character begins talking and claims to be the greatest indie game developer ever. 

On the set of The Samer Khatib Show

The remainder of the video focuses on the character as he brags about how good he thinks his games are. Virtual Snowconesolid is a new alternate internet persona I created which represents a very exaggerated, big headed, egocentric version of my real self as a game developer. A parody character to occasionally make fun of the indie game scene, video games in general, off topic subjects and myself of course. 

Freeze!

This is the first appearance of the character and the so called "Samer Khatib Show". The video isn't perfect and the voice over is slightly out of sync, the video is very short, and animations could be better. There is a lot of room for improvement. This is just a first test run of hopefully the start of something new and wonderful as I dive into the world of YouTube content creation. With that said,  I really like how it all turned out and I plan doing a lot more short YouTube skits as well as re-use the character for many game projects in the future for years to come. So "The Samer Khatib Show" wasn't a one time thing and this isn't the only time Virtual Snowconesolid will make an appearance. 

Creation

Although short, a lot of time and effort went into creating this 45 second animation. As I was working on it, I constantly stopped every couple minuets to take a screenshot of where I currently was at in the project so that I could later share the experience here on the blog.

In the past, these "Making Of" articles I have written up only consisted of how I created a certain character model. Today, I will cover the entire project. Everything from modeling the character, setting up the scene in the Unity engine to rendering out a complete animation for YouTube. 

So grab some coffee because this is going to be a long post.

The Beginning : A Rough Sketch

We live in a time where digital art is a more superior format. We have all these technologies to help us create literally anything we want. However, as much as I love the digital format I still believe that traditional pencil and paper is one of the most powerful set of tools an artist or anyone really can use. When you grab a blank sheet of paper and a pencil you experience true creative freedom without any limits. You can quickly brain storm your ideas, take quick notes, random thoughts, mindless fun doodles and so on! This is generally where all ideas usually start. Born on paper and then evolve into something bigger. Okay sorry, i'm just rambling now and getting off topic. Anyway, here is just a quick rough sketch of the character before becoming a full 3d animated model.

Okay, obviously nothing really fancy. I didn't want to spend too much time just doodling around. Kind of a generic looking character design but it helps to have something to look at and reference off of  when you go into your 3d software to begin modeling. It isn't necessary either. I don't always sketch a character on paper then model it. Actually, most of the time I just go straight into Blender3D and begin modeling. In this case however, I knew that I wanted to make a character that was more of a virtual version of myself and not end up being a character that came together from random thoughts such as Lana The Lemon from Potato Thriller. 

Modeling until it's juuussst right!

I'm going to be skipping over a couple of the basic steps in this section because they are just the same steps I listed in my other "Making Of" posts. I am only going to be talking about the more important steps of the creation process. If I mention something and don't show a picture of it and you want to see what I am talking about check out some of my older making of articles like this one or this one or thiiisss one. Anyway, for this particular character model I used the box modeling technique. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the terminology,  the box modeling technique is pretty much where you poly model the entire character model from just a basic cube. I mentioned in the past that this is my preferred 3d modeling style opposed to other techniques such as sculpting the character because I feel like box modeling is the fastest way to get a character created and I feel like I am more efficient when I poly model my 3d models. Just a personal preference though. Everyone has their own way of doing things.

The Head

When making a character model, the first thing I start working on before anything else is the head and face of the model. I find that the head is usually what takes the most time when creating a character. Also, I feel like the head is the most important part because the head/face are really the most distinctive features of the model. This is what will truly define the model and make it recognizable. Like I said, I started with just a basic cube. Modeled a head, features like eyes, mouth, nose, teeth, ears and a really bad hairstyle. 

I know what you are thinking, this looks really weird and nothing like the final character shown in the images at the beginning of this post. Keep in mind, this was still the first iteration of the model and an early work in progress. I spent a lot of time tweaking the entire model until it felt just right. Keep reading to see its evolution. 

All The Naked Glory!

Skipping ahead, I later modeled the rest of the body and rigged the character with Blender Rigify. You may have also noticed that the model has actual colors on it and isn't just the bland default grey that all 3d models start off as. I kept on laying down base colors as I modeled. This is just me trying to plan ahead for when I go into texturing the model. As I mentioned earlier, check out my older Making Of posts to see the steps I just listed above (rigging, base colors, etc) in more detail.

beautiful naked pose

Screenshot of weight painting to correct some issues the rig had so that it can deform properly.

Fabulous Flowing Hair!

After modeling the body and creating a rig for the character I decided to revisit the head area and begin working on that some more until I liked the way it looked. If you noticed in the images above, the character is suddenly bald. Where did his hair go? I didn't like the original hair I designed. I scrapped that and then began just modeling a variety of different hair styles.

As of this post, I have created 4 different hair pieces that the character can switch out and wear. I plan on creating more hairstyles for future use as I continue using the character for different projects. 

Wigs for everyone!

The first hairstyle is the manly samurai warrior man bun

Still naked at this point by the way

The second one is called "The Charlie Sheen" because I used his hair as inspiration. This hair style is based off of his typical long bangs in the front cleanly trimmed everywhere else. 

The third style is the old English fancy rich boy cut. I don't know why I call it that, but it just seems like a fancy type of hair style.

And finally the "Toon Link Wig". This is the forth hair style and character default. Probably the one I will use the most. The hairstyle is shamelessly inspired off of Toon Link's hair style as he appeared in the legend of Zelda Wind Waker. 

Wire Framez

For 3d nerds, here are the only two screenshots I took of the wire frame for the model. I put this after the hair section, because I took these wire frame screenshots of the model wearing the samurai hair. 

The Nose Job

As I was working on this character, I would sometimes take a break to share the wip screenshots on Twitter or on the Unity forums. A lot of people where making fun of my nose. Some calling me names like birdman, others making fun of how big and pink it was. This hurtful comments got to me and made me feel very insecure about my nose. Everyone thought I was ugly. After having my feelings hurt, I decided to make a dramatic change in my life. I had to get rid of my hideous natural nose, do what all the celebrities do and get a new nose! I got a nose job and it changed my life forever!

Seriously though, thanks everyone for the feedback about the nose. I'm glad I listened to you guys. Anyway, I removed his original and remodeled one to be more consisted with the overall design of the character. His new nose became the same color as his skin and actually attached to his face. This was a good improvement.

But.. part of me kind of liked the original awkward big nose I made for him. I was sad to see it go. I still wanted that nose. So what did I do?  Instead of just scrapping it, I decided to turn his original big nose into a pair of novelty goofy glasses that he can wear anytime!

SEE!

 Also, I could re-use these new glasses I created as just a regular pair of glasses and mustache as well.

by the way, you might of noticed the color in these images are a bit better then the previous ones. His hair and skin doesn't look shiny. There is some pink on the tip of his nose and ears, etc. That's because I had done some texture work at this point. The idea for the goofy glasses was actually one of the last things I created for the model. So when I took these screenshots, I already had done a bunch of other things which I will get into. I am just trying to keep a consistent blog post here. 

Clothes and Customizable character

Jumping back to before I textured the model. I created clothes for the character because he has been naked for a very long time. Unlike most of my other character models, I had customization in mind for this one. I plan on using this character model for more than one project and long term use. So, of course I might want to be able to easily change him for future purposes. When it comes to character models, especially game character models, its a very common practice (or was a common practice) for the entire model to be part of  one unified mesh. Maybe these days it isn't necessarily as much of an important practice as it was back around older gen hardware. For this model, since I want to have the ability to just jump back one day and change something, I decided to leave every piece a separate part. So for example, the head isn't actually connected to the rest of the body its a separate model. The feet are separated so they can be swapped out with shoes, the torso can be swapped out with just a shirt so it doesn't have to render out the polygons of the parts that won't show but it will still give the illusion that the model is wearing a shirt over his body, etc. Everything works perfectly with the rig and can just be swapped out with a different piece of clothing or accessory at anytime. The character is fully customizable. 

Beautiful glowing skin! - Texturing

As I mentioned earlier, I was laying down base colors along the way as I modeled. This helped speed things up with the texturing process. I kept things simple. I wasn't aiming to create a realistic character. I was creating a cartoony character. After all the modeling was complete, I began marking seams on every single mesh. Then I unwrapped to a 1024x1024 texture map, layed out my uvs and baked out the base colors I had setup. Then I baked out the Ambient Occlusion (AO) to a separate map. 

Once the AO map was finished, I went into Gimp and combined my base colors and AO map into one texture map. Took it back into blender and cleaned it up a bit. Here is what the final texture map looks like. (Note: this is only for the skin, I also created textures for the clothes and other stuff.) 

The final textured character model in Blender.

Face Expressions

This character model is especially unique compared to some of my older models because for the first time ever I actually have animated facial expressions! I am very happy about this because in the past I would always model my character models with just one constant stiff face expression. It made them seem dull and unbelievable. However, this time I knew I wanted to make the character actually appear to be talking and that I was going have close up cuts on the face. Obviously as you can see in the animation the facial expressions are still a bit awkward. Definitely not Pixar animation quality. But it's something. The character can actually move his mouth around for the first time in snowconesolid productions history and I am proud of that. I actually spent the most time working the face expressions and figuring out a way to animate them within the unity engine. The main reason it took me so long was because I was experimenting with a number of different ways to animate in the engine. I tried shape keys (which Unity does support however, is hell to actually animate or create a good result from within the engine. Hopefully in future releases of the engine, we will be given a better way to use shape keys and possibly even have them animate) I also tried baking shape key animations which worked to some degree but wasn't what I was looking for. I attempted to create a face rig for my model which didn't end up good at all since face rigging isn't something I am very skilled at. And motion capture was never an option for me. 

In the end I came up with my own way to animate the face inside of the Unity engine. So what I did was create all the different facial expressions separately. And then in Unity I set up my own state machine to transition between the different facial expressions. So I can simply just tell the state machine manager what facial expression I want it to put on the character model depending on how I would want him to react. In the video above you really only see the character model transition between 2 facial expressions (closed mouth and open mouth) but really he has many other face expressions that I could use.

heads for each face expression.

I have done something similar just one other time before in the past and that was for this Donkey character I created a while back. I created a number of different facial expressions just like I did for this character model. The only difference was that those never transitioned between each other. I never set up a way for them to do so. 

Inside the Unity Engine - Character Testing and Setup

Creating the multiple face expressions in Blender was the last thing I did. Once that was done I bundled everything up and exported the entire character in the Unity engine. I set up the character to work with Unity's Animator (Mecanim) component. I set up the materials and created a state machine manager to handle transitions between facial expressions (as I mentioned in the previous section)

After doing a couple of character tests and prepping the model I got sidetracked and just started goofing around in the engine for fun. I ended up taking  my character model, posing him in some test scenes I created and rendering out silly images which actually turned out pretty cool to look at (well I think they look cool at least) Here are a couple of renders from the Unity engine I created

I like how these images turned out and also they are useful because they are good examples to show how the character model looks like in scenes with different lighting as well as show the possibilities that can be created with his different facial expressions. The first image gives off this evil tone to it while the second image portrays sadness. The third image is kind of funny because his standing on the beach screaming at something we don't know about. And the fourth render is just goofy because there are hamburgers all over and the model in the background has sort of a creepy smile on him.

Setting the Stage for The Samer Khatib Show

The character is finally complete at this point and I moved on to create the world he will be in. From the start I was planning on creating a TV show type set and had a good idea of what I wanted to do.

Back into blender, I created a couple pieces of furniture such as couches and a desk. Textured the models and exported them into the Unity engine.

I set up a very basic environment that kind of looked like it could be a set of a talk show but at the same time looks nothing like a tv talk show at all. I was very empty and boring. It was missing the magic of a talk show setup. I knew it needed way more work. 

For reference I went to google and just looked up images of late night talk shows like The Tonight Show with Jimmy and Conan. I looked at their sets and wanted to create a similar feeling in my scene but at the same time add some of my own flavor to it. Make it me. Have that Samer Khatib vibe to it. 

I began hammering away until I had created a set that had my name written all over it.

I had a ton of other assets in my Unity project already available to me (which I have created all my self of course. I never asset flip. Every model you see is created from scratch)

So I modified one of my couches, I put a miniature version of my mascot on the host desk and just started laying props around until I made it feel like a set with a wacky twist to it.

After hours of editing, re-positioning props and tweaking the lighting, the set of the Samer Khatib Show is born!

Final Set

Directing The Animation Inside Of The Unity Engine

If you are familiar with the Unity engine and tried to create a cutscene with it before you probably know how painful it is. The Unity Engine is not a video editor. For years I have been blindly animating cutscenes in the Unity engine. Creating massive state machines to control camera cuts. Spending weeks to make one simple short animated scene and I just took it. I accepted it and thought that this is just how people create cutscenes in game engines. It's a regular work flow. It was hell! I was a fool! Then, I discovered Cinema Director - A sequence and Cutscene editor for the Unity engine.

This plug-in made creating cutscenes fun again. No more terrible work arounds! Its like a video editor. You can direct and control any of your objects. This tool saved my life! Seriously though, if you are planning on creating cutscenes in the Unity engine for your game or animation I highly recommend this plug-in. It is everything creating cutscenes should be like. Anyway, back to my project. I used this plug-in to direct what will happen and essentially create the entire animation really.

Rendering with Helios

The animation is finished now but how do I capture this in video format? This was suppose to be the easiest step out of everything but had me scratching my head for days. I tried everything to capture my animation. Fraps, Bandicam, everything! I found myself constantly running into frame rate issues as well as poor quality output. Then a friend told me about Helios (also a plug-in for the Unity engine)

I swear I am not trying to advertise these plugins and I am not sponsored by the devs of these tools. But Helios is definitely another 5 star Unity plug-in that I highly recommend if you want to create a high quality animation within the Unity engine. Helios is an offline renderer and works similar to the rendering features in Blender. It will capture every single frame for you and can be forced to playback at 60 fps without any loss in quality. Speaking of quality, Helios can render out up to 8K resolution! DAAAAMNN SON!

For this animation I used Helios and rendered out at 60 frames at resolution of 1280x720 (YouTube Quality).

Final Video

      I'll leave this last part short. For the voice over, I used Audacity to record my own voice.

Then I took the sound file and clips I rendered out with Helios, brought them into Camtasia video editor - Put it all together, created a video and uploaded to YouTube. 

NOTE: I mentioned in the beginning of the post that the voice is a tad out of sync. This is something I will work on to improve for future animated videos.  

.....And that's it. That is the making of "The Samer Khatib Show."

Thanks for Reading. For those interested, below is a complete list of all the tools I used to create everything.

List of Tools Used:

Blender3D

Gimp

Unity Engine

PlayMaker

Cinema Director

Helios

Audacity

Camtasia