largento

Thanks! Assume I have a handle on nothing. :-) I haven't done any CP weighting with this rig, although I did mess with it a little with the 2001 rig. That was all stab-in-the-dark stuff, though. This is another thing that I think I'm going to have to spend some more time with to really understand it. I'm fairly certain I'm in good shape with the bones being the same, since the tutorial walked me through completing one side, then saving it out, flipping it, renaming all the left bones to right bones and then importing it back in. The CPs are only mostly the same. I've since gone back and changed some things, though. I had a couple of 5-point patches in the armpits that were placed badly, so I went in and re-did those to get them into a better spot. I did the same thing to both sides, but I did it individually, so they aren't exactly the same. I also had to re-do his abdomen to make it work better with the legs and did that the same way. I wasn't sure if I could use mirror-mode to delete CPs and re-attach things and didn't experiment to see if I could. But, all of the other areas and joints should still be the same. Any of the adjustments I've made where I was just moving CPs around, I've used mirror-mode. The only really bad joint I'm getting is the legs connecting to the hips. Especially if I pose him sitting down. With CP weighting, I'll need to do the geometry bones (since they actually have CPs attached to them), but can I (should I) do the smartskinning with the control bones? I'm hoping I can finish out this model this weekend, so that I can move on to the next one.

Thanks for the link, Chris! I've been looking for a smartskinning tutorial. I bit the bullet last week and went along with Barry's rigging tutorial DVD. Although there was a lot to it, it *did* start to make sense after awhile and the rig works pretty well! I think one of the missing pieces for me was finally "getting" the connection between the CPs and the bones. I guess I had it in my head that I was going to have to work to get the CPs to work with the rig, but it's actually getting the rig to work with the CPs. I haven't done any smartskinning yet and I still have to do facial poses, but I've been playing around, posing the character and most of the joints seem to deform fairly well. What was good, too, was that where I was having problems, I now had more of an idea of how to go back and re-do the mesh to fix it. I'm certain this will help me when I start on the next model. I've gotten over a lot of the sense of terror I was feeling at the prospect of rigging. :-) I've been having a lot of fun just putting him into poses. I think I'm tapping into memories of setting up my action figures when I was a kid. :-) Here's the one I was playing with this morning. The background is just something I grabbed off of the web. I was finally able to show him holding the phaser I made...

That's awesome! And I don't think it's making fun of him at all. 'Sides he did that song with Bob & Doug Mackenzie all those years ago which means he probably has a good sense of humor.

Whew! It's taken awhile, but I'm getting close to finishing Captain Krok. He's changed a fair amount and probably will change a little more before all is said and done. I'm really feeling good about it. This is the first time I've ever modeled and rigged a character to this point and I'm like a kid at Christmas with it. :-) Rigging was something that was really giving me pause, but I knuckled down and followed Barry's tutorial and I'm now feeling mildly competent. :-) A BIG improvement. :-) I haven't done any smart skinning yet. Just from playing around with the model, the tough area is where the legs join. When I put him into a sitting position, it deforms badly. I may have to look at remodelling his abdomen to improve that as well as smart skinning. I'm really looking forward to doing the facial poses, so I can really bring him to life. As a mini-goal, I'm aiming at doing one little scene from the story first. It's one of the gags during the Captain Krok/Mr. Spott fight. Obviously, I'll have to create Mr. Spott and there's a couple of props and part of the Vulcanine set. Hopefully I can get those finished in the next month or so.

Myriad is Adobe's default typeface for Illustrator. It's using its own version of it that isn't installed like your normal fonts. I suppose you could track it down on your computer and make a duplicate to install with your normal fonts.

Thanks for the input, guys! I think I'm going to take a little of all of the above and save out a few different versions of the model to try the different methods with. It seems like a smart thing to do to go ahead and follow Barry's tutorial and go step by step with creating a rig first. Hopefully it'll relieve some of the "what the heck am I doing?!" anxiety I've been feeling so far. :-) After that, I can revisit the 2001 rig and then by that time, the new stuff for the Squetch rig should be available and I can give it a shot. Baby steps. :-)

Hi folks, looking for some opinions on rigging... I'm reaching the point where I'm needing to rig my character. It's a little daunting. Okay, it's a LOT daunting. :-) I don't really know what all my options are, but from what I've been able to see there's: the 2001 rig, the Squetch rig or create a custom one. I'm on a Mac and running Tiger, so The Setup Machine isn't an option for me. I've been messing with the 2001 rig (after doing the boneless thom tute) and it goes okay until I start getting to parts that deviate too much from the default rig or go past the tutorial (like finger bones). Not understanding how all of the various hidden bones work, I'm not sure why they are where they are and where they should be exactly. So, I thought I'd pause take a break and seek out some advice on how I should proceed. The Squetch rig looks complicated, but there seems to be a really good video tutorial to follow and I've got Barry Zundel's rigging DVD which walks you through building a custom rig. Part of me thinks maybe going the custom route would be good for the learning experience of finding out what the bones do and why they are placed where they are, but there seem to be a lot of bells and whistles in the Squetch rig that would be beyond my being able to create on my own. I'm resolved that it will be something that will come easier with the experience of having done it several times, but I'm hoping you kind folks could point out some of the pitfalls and point me to a better path so that the trip isn't quite so bumpy.

Oops... double posted...

The Borg Cube definitely looks less like fuzzy dice now. :-) By narrative, I was meaning a story. My memory of Wolf 359 is just that the Federation sent a fleet to stop the Borg on their way to Earth and the Borg wiped them out and it was inferred that it was because they had Locutus' knowledge and leadership. I was wondering if you were going to do something like follow one captain through the whole battle or do it as a "tour" of the battle. Sounds like you're doing a mix.

There's some great work going on here! Kudos! Not too sure about the Borg cube, though... The detailing is too small, I think. Makes it look kind of fuzzy. I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing this, though! Do you know how you're going to do the narrative? Or is this just going to be just a tour through the battle? Should be awesome either way...

That's pretty cool. The inverted colors (photo negative) on the eyes does give it a sort of crazed look.

Question for the gurus: I'm getting a white patch on Krok's right wrist. I noticed on the renders I did yesterday and it showed up on this one I did this morning. I looked at the model last night and the normals are facing outwards in that area and it's not visible as being white in the modelling window. It's also a 4-point patch. Any idea on what's happening and how I can fix it? It's just a duplicate of the left hand, which doesn't have this showing up.

Thank you, Lee! I take that as high praise coming from you! The insignia has a stylized "2P" on it (for the ship, Secondprize). I did think it would be funny to make the symbol on Mr. Spott's be "OrNot" and then Dr. McGruff's be "2P" so that you get "2P OrNot 2P" when they are lined up. :-) I'm sure nobody will be able to read it, though... My thought was to put in little things like that on the props... like there are two buttons on the Captain's chair marked "Butt Warmer" with "Left Cheek" and "Right Cheek" under each. :-) Again, nobody'll ever see them, but I get a chuckle out of them. :-)

Here's a photo of the actual costumes from the show (you can see how short the pants are and get an idea of how they flared out).

Thanks! I think I need to figure out how to stretch the chest out in the Z. It seems too wide and not deep enough. It looks okay in 3/4 view, but it gets weird when it goes from being wide from the front/back to thin in the side view. I'm going to have to figure that out. I'm definitely wanting to emphasize the pants. I'm parodying the look of the actual costumes. I'm not thrilled with the boots, but they do have to have heels and a fairly pointy toe (again to lampoon the actual uniforms). I used a picture of latin boots as my guide and they are kind of feminine looking.

Thanks, Al! I'm with you about the Original Series stuff... although, I would say that the movie Enterprise is the best-looking of the ships. I'm slowly picking away at this. I've just put together the Captain Krok figure. There's some things I see with regards to the seam that are going to need some attention, but it's getting there. I'm figuring that after I've done a few people models, I may end up coming back and re-doing the whole figure. Here's a render and a quick turnaround... krokspin_s.mov

I agree! All of these models have been great, but this last one is super-great!

It's my understanding that Lucasfilm has an informal arrangement where they turn a blind eye to fan films that do not seek to be commercial ventures. There are also Lucasfilm-sanctioned fan film contests. At the least, it could be finished to submit to one of those. As much as I can remember they usually require there be no copyrighted materials in them (like the music). It does seem a real shame to waste all the time and effort that's already put into it. Especially when there seems to be real interest in the project.

Good luck, dude! I would hope your school would recognize how pervasive 3D art and animation will be in the future. As media shifts away from paper and printing to online media and future technologies like electronic paper, motion graphics are going to be hugely important. 3D will be everywhere. I'm sure they'll see the educational value of giving the students the tools to explore that. How's that for an endorsement? :-)

Cool character! If he's an alien, I think you can make up your own proportions for the eyes. But if you're not wanting that, the normal human face is 5 eyes wide. So there's an eye's width between the two eyes and an eye's width between the outside of the face and the eyes.

Thanks, Zaryin! I think the TOS phaser may be one of the coolest-looking props from any tv show ever. I was really disappointed when TNG went with those "dustbuster" phasers.

Cool stuff, Bruce! Dig those Three Jive Mice!

Still pushing along. I'm pausing on my Captain Krok for a breather and to figure out what I'm going to do with his height. In the comic, I made him really short to play up the contrast with Mr. Spott who was reall tall and thin. I did recognize, though, that I kind of cheated his shape between pages (and some times even between panels) by sometimes making him proportionately short and sometimes taking height out of his legs. I definitely want to have the contrast, but I'm going to have to commit to just one body shape for this. Just to keep the ball rolling, I started building a type 2 phaser. (The type 1 phaser is the black "box" on the top of it. I did make it complete, so it can be used separately.) They didn't use any phasers in "Amok Time," but how can you do a Trek parody without having a phaser? :-) There's a part of me that thinks of this as making a virtual toybox and filling it up with cool Star Trek toys. :-)

Thanks, mfortunato and nyah! I see what you're talking about, nyah. I'll get in there tonight and figure out how to fix that. There's also some awkwardness still with the front of the hair that needs some serious attention. If this Trek parody doesn't work out, maybe I can just stick a flashlight under the head and do "In the Year 2000" gags. :-)

Holy Cow, he does!