Joint Chains/ IK Splines / UV Mapping

To develop our skills further, we were taught how to create a basic joint chain and how to use IK splines in order to create a more fluid animation using a rig. IK splines is for more control and you yourself are able to place the points where you want the object to move, otherwise it is normally automatic. To experiment with this further I created a flag using joint chains and IK splines and then exported this out into Unity. Once in Unity you are then able to put the animation on a loop so it is constantly moving.

Another thing we also developed upon was UV mapping. From the animation module I hadn't really explored much with complex UV mapping so to get to grips with this we created a more complex shape and then went on to creating a tree. Once you get to grips with it the process itself seems quite easy, you just need to know where to cut the UVs and which direction to unfold. The main issue that came across  was that some of the texture became stretched, I think I may have unfolded certain branches in the wrong direction so when it comes to UV mapping all the assets in my scene I will have to do a test run as I wouldn't want to rush into it and find that I would have to do it all again. By doing lots of tests I will also be able to see what would be best suited once put into my scene. As nothing in my scene is made up of any one single plane I will not really have to worry about back-face culling (in Unity if you want to see the inside of something you have to create the geometry for that too). You would normally have to create two planes and teh same texture but flipped, however there is a shader in Unity that allows you to see both sides with only a single plane. This is something very useful to bear in mind as it will cut my workflow down in the future.