Superhero underway

[JohnArtbox]

A cartoony superhero underway. This model is going to act as a generic base to build a variety of muscle bound superheroes for a short film.

download size 170k.

I wrote the film for a submission about 6 years ago, but at that point had no spare time. My daughter's now 5 so I thoiught it was about time to leave the commercial work for a while and do something fun. Comments welcome

hero.mpg

[JohnArtbox]

And for those who don't have broadband, here's a jpeg

[Grubber]

Have you tried toon shading?

I think that would be better for such hero

[Mike Lium]

I think he looks great .

Are you going to leave his muscles sharp like that ?

 

To me it look like you might be going for a kinda roger ramjet / tick ?

 

I like it and looking forward to seeing how he will progress

[gudi3d]

nice job! can you post a high res image, so we can see the details?

[nerrazzi]

Cool model and.... I love that lighting! Can you provide specs on that?

[JohnArtbox]

Thanks for the comments Guys.

Grubber, I like the rendered look.

Mike, Yup, reality's been done, I'm going absurd.

Bizzle, I'll try it and see what happens. I'm only a few hours in at the moment and my main aim was to pull it into the shape of the sketch. I'm verging between a case of 3d / 2d imbalance and really liking the awkwardness.

Gudi I'll post hires images as I get to land mark points, it's going to be a long trip.

Nerrazzi, the lighting is a from a spinning light right generated from a utility I wrote called Skycast. There's a free beta on my website here

Skycastbeta

It's like a fast skydome built for the multipass renderer, it uses two soft shadow kleigs and a specular kleig

[Mike Lium]

Cool!

 

He looks ( from the drawing ) like he will be fun to work on .

Mike

[nerrazzi]

Thanks for that link JohnArtbox, I'll save it for when I get 11.

 

Modeling wise, (my opinion, not sure what kind of super hero he is...)

 

1. Great toes but I'd probably get rid of them and replace 'em with some fancy boots with wings or something.

 

2. Give him double thigh muscles in the front, single in the back & knee-cap

 

3. Make him some really tight super-hero-underwear, something that makes him smile the way he does ya know...

 

4. Broaden the width of his jaw some.

 

My 0.02564 cents

[Iham Wrong]

Overall he looks fine and cartoony, but wouldn't he look better if his head was a tad more pointed and his feet a lot smaller. As is he looks like a plow boy with some really womper clod-hoppers.

 

Nevermind.. That would be just too traditional looking and defeat the emphasis you are shooting for.

[Mega]

What a nice design and such character to him. I especially like his face, very expressive. The one thing, however, that does catch my eye, is the transition between his chest and pelvis. To me, again, imho, seems very wide for his lower body. Have you tried giving his pelvis some girth to it? Maybe raise his calf muscle? All in all, a very nice design and equal modeling skills.

 

Maybe enter him for the 2004 mascot!?

[zacktaich]

Very cool. MY one critique his crotch hangs pretty low. This would look especially weird in animating unless you made it swing from side to side, and that would be just plain wrong.

 

thoroughly disgusted with my self,

Zack T.

[nerrazzi]

HA HA HA!

[Mike Lium]

MY one critique his crotch hangs pretty low. This would look especially weird in animating unless you made it swing from side to side

Thats why hes called a Super Hero

 

 

Mike

[smudge]

I think you've wandered from your original design. Especially in the upper legs, which is the only part that's giving me troubles.

 

From the side his legs look fine, but from the front, you have him with a little more meat on him upper leg bones in your drawing. Go ahead and fill him out, but no more than what your original drawing calls for. It'll give him a good since of twigginess, but make it seem that his legs won't snap simply trying to support his upper body.

[JohnArtbox]

Time for my daily update, two days into the project an I'm half a day late already.

Thanks for the comments. I'll try thickening the lower torso and upper legs on my hero at least. These intitial models are templates, basic body shapes that I can then use to create multiple characters. The hero model will probably be altered to create a superhero team.

The new guy is Timmy, a little boy. He's very much a WIP and currently looks more like an evil halfing but I'm going to use this thread to detail the project.

Good and bad, I'll live with it.

I'm going to take an intial run at all of the characters before I go back and revise them because then I'll be able to see them in context as a cast(and in clothes).

[lazarter]

It's looking great! That small dude is awesome.

[Parlo]

You've probably already addressed the probelm - but I agree with Smudge about the legs on the adult. They look like they are made out of twiglets at the mo.

 

Other than that nit-picking detail - really strong characters, though the kid scares me more than a little...

[Mega]

Again, nice update! I really like the "big" hero. As I said before, the face looks great. One thing I noticed, if possible, maybe add some definition to around the clavicle? This may create more "depth" between the chest and neck area. I can't wait to see them finsihed, and textured. Besides being protoypes, will you be using them in any projects? After this, you'll have to add a female, too!

[JohnArtbox]

Time for another update. And for those who thought the hero's legs were twigs here's a female character.

 

Just kidding, her legs aren't modelled yet, although I do like how she looks now, maybe I'll keep her for another time or secondary character.

I'm thinking of using the alpha 11 hair, which is why they're all bald.

And Mega, they're primitives for a superhero short film. Within the week I'll connect the electrodes, and thunderstorm permitting they'll be alive.

Thanks for all the comments, hopefully your not getting bored.

[JohnArtbox]

Bedtime now. Here's the end of day 4, not bad considering I took the weekend off.

Tomorrow I'll do the props and backgrounds for the first scene and try to get one or two of the characters rigged. While there are still a lot of imperfections and some creasing in the models, I'm pressing onwards with the sure knowledge that any more than basic fine tuning will not allow me to finish the short on schedule.

G'nite.

[ZachBG]

The kid looks much more like a kid now. (Watch, you're gonna say that you didn't change him at all.)

 

Nice work! Very distinctive but still aesthetically pleasing.

 

Zach

[the_raytracer]

Hey, I like this.

I like it a lot.

There is a very claymation-looking style over all the characters. It´s smooth yet rough in som way.

If you give thesm some real low down grimy texturing and funky lighting you have a very appeling look.

 

Looking forward to seeing them progress.

 

Skål! /Peter

[smudge]

Wow! He looks a lot better now (Male Super). And I really like the work you've done on the female. Good job!

[Mega]

Nice!! I have to add that the modeling of the big hero's back is quite nice. I really like the female model. The hips/pelvis make the model. Very, very nice.

 

What's a critique without a comment...

 

Have you tried to make the head of the female model less pronounced? Instead of a triangle shape, maybe more oval?

 

I hope you don't mind my $.02...really nice work!

[JohnArtbox]

Hi All,

thanks for the comments.

Zach, I spent a few hours trying to decrease the evil halfling factor and I'm pretty happy at the moment. I took him into the Alpha and quickly added hair which made a huge difference.

Smudge / Raytracer aaw shucks, thanks.

Mega : she had an oval face in some of my earlier sketches, but the triangular shape creates a more definite silhouete contrast with Timmy on head shots. I did about 8 different designs and the triangular face just sort of clicked for me.

....and criticism is always welcome. I may not take your advice, but I'll think about it and I appreciate that you've taken enough time to write down your viewpoint.

 

Here's a mesh shot. They're built very simply, mainly just extrusions from a central chest. While in some ways it's satisfying to build a detailed and complex model, if I did I'd probably never finish. Hopefully they'll be as easy to rig as they were to build.

Back to work now.

ciao

[ZachBG]

Here's a mesh shot.

Just curious... are you planning on major mouth animation? The splinage seems pretty minimal for that if you're planning for that...

 

Zach

[Mega]

What do you mean you wont take my advice...!!

 

I can remember when I had to have some work reviewed by..."pro's". I listen to everyone that is willing to offer their insight - this in itself, is very educational. I had to learn to sometimes "turn off" some critiques. Sometimes people have an axe to grind, or prefer to simply get under one's skin. I believe you can learn from everyone. The art is to glean what is truly necessary, and discard that which is simply...poop. The above posts show that A:M users are here to share, and learn from each other...

 

So, when is the next update!?

 

Also, why arent you working on Skycast?

[Mike Lium]

Well the family is really starting to take shape

[littleandy]

Cool Style! Can't wait to see how you animate them. Keep it up.

 

-Andrew

[JohnArtbox]

ZachBG: Yup the splinage is light but I did a few quick tests(stills only) and it seemed to work fine.

Mega :Skycast is done except for some tutorials(which will grow out of this project) and me getting my act together for the webpage. I'll add more rigs as I need them for our productions and will look at Skycast users requests.

The Update

Anyway the image front is a bit quiet as I add bones and Ik to the models. Thank goodness for the Setup Machine. I'm using fan bones to shape the transition areas. As you can see there are some problems with the shoulder, thigh and knee joints. I'm pretty sure they'll be easy to resolve.

[dreamin3d]

Really cool! The pencil drawing reminds me of Saturday morning School House Rock! Maybe you could bring that back 3d style!

[Mega]

Cool! That is such a nice update. You really gave him character with this pose. This may sound odd, however, I really like his hands...large, and very expressive. What is that odd opening/dent(?) near his left leg? Non rendered 5-pt patch?

 

I can see the three models running at the audience...cool stuff.

[JohnArtbox]

Mega: the patch was distorted splinage.

 

Slight slowdown in progress as I discover that the courier company delivering my laptop from warranty servicing lost it. Several arguments later I'm getting a new one, which is annoying as all hell because it'll take all day to reinstall software.

 

Learnt a lot about joints as I rigged my hero "primitive". Because of the width of his limbs I had to add splines for a lot of the joints.The shoulder, elbow, knee and thighs all got extra splines and fan bones. Although not a perfect result I figure I'll be able to cleanup the result with smartskin.

I also tried to do the joints in smartskin without fan bones but found that dificult to control. Thanks to David Rogers for his information on how to access Smartskin keyframes.

 

Tip: To look at the effect of my fan bones in the smartskin window, I added all of my fan bones into a constraints pose. I then turned the constraints pose on in the smartskin window, adjusted my smartskin , and deleted the constraints pose from the smartskin entry under the PWS.

The journey continues.

[Mega]

I'm really enjoying your progress. It is so much fun seeing an artist develop their work. Would you mind sharing wireframe shots of the problem joints? Id like to see the extra splineage you used to add mesh to the jouints to prep for the animation.

 

Oh, yeah, nice tip! Thanks.

[ZachBG]

Tip: To look at the effect of my fan bones in the smartskin window, I added all of my fan bones into a constraints pose. I then turned the constraints pose on in the smartskin window, adjusted my smartskin , and deleted the constraints pose from the smartskin entry under the PWS.

Cool!

 

Another quick and easy way to do this is turn OFF the "define relationship" button, then apply your constraints pose, then turn the button back ON to define your SmartSkin. Same thing, different method, and because "define relationship" was off, the pose won't be added into the SmartSkin.

 

Zach

[Mike Lium]

John this guy is really taking shape .

Got any ideas on how you are going to texture him ?

[JohnArtbox]

Hi All

Another day down the track.

Mega..I'll give you some shots later too tired to do anything else at the moment but they'll be here soon.

Zach.. Where is the Define Relationship button?

Mike..I'll use Zbrush and Painter to texture him, probably hand painted textures with the aim of having him look like a stop motion puppet, but I'm not sure.

Before I get to that I have to build props for him.

Finished adding extra splinage this morning before I had to leave the island to pickup my replacement laptop. Since getting back I've started on Pose sliders. Where possible I'm using -100 to +100 sliders and trying to get two expressions onto each slider with left and right seperation. The face seems to be holding up pretty well and the light topology makes it quick to sculpt new poses.

I've got a few more characters to model but I'll leave those until later, the three finished give me my main cast, and I want to try out some new ideas. This thread is acting like a personal trainer, I want to post a new image/stage each time so it's forcing me to keep everything moving.

As always criticism and questions are welcome.

G'nite

 

PS we need animator smilies, I want an exhausted smilie with a strong black coffee.

[Mega]

As I wrote earlier, the face is incredibly well done. The expressions are priceless. The frown and the last laugh are, imho, the best ones...really nice work. How did you find rigging the face? Can't wait to see them textured and animated.

[JohnArtbox]

I cap a lot of my cylindrical heads with grids so that the distribution on the top of the head is more even. The patch is one I did to illustrate Victor Navone's thread

Basically I create my heads with cylinders and then cap them with grids.

To reproduce the curve easily I :

lock off all points but the grid;

switch to magnet mode and change the diameter of the magnet to the objects top ring diameter;

select the centre of the grid(in this case four points) and push it upwards: and

then I tweak the points.

The first two steps do 90 percent of the work.

I also use magnet mode to rough out most of my poses

[smudge]

Man, this guys really coming along nicely. Your expressions are making him come to life. Can't wait to see in animation action.

[JohnArtbox]

Nope, I haven't given up or been hit by a bus.

I've been working on the control systems and since these fail to make exciting posts, I haven't been doing frequent updates. I've also been delayed while waiting for mirror splines to allow me to copy half body setups.

Anyway,I have three tips(Two mundane and the third pretty cool) and a progress report, I've added teeth and I've coloured pupils although the spherical eyes will be replaced by more anatomically correct eyes. most of the expressions are done although I'm waiting for mirrorsplines to copy some fairly complicated rigs and groups.

 

Tip One

To create a duplicate bone or set of bones

In the PWS select the bone/s and press the control key while dragging and dropping the bones. This will create a duplicate set which can be renamed and or rescaled.

 

Tip 2

To scale a series of bones insert a temporary parent bone and use the control key while the scale, translate, rotate gyro is active.

 

Tip 3

And this is the one that took me a while to work out.

Top create an auto eye rig you can use smartskin create eyelids that deform according to the direction of the pupil. To negate this smartskin for when you want to oipen and close the eyes you create an anti smartskin. Add a bone beneath the eye and call it something descriptive like "LeftEyeReverseSmartskin". Add a new smartskin to it and create keys at the same angle as the eyelid smartskin but with negative values. This creates a bone which when rotated to the same direction as the pupil cancels out the eyelid smartskin so you can easily blink, or soften the effect of the smartskin. Then create a slider which contains an orient like on the "LeftEyeReverseSmartskin" to orient like the Left eye bone. Switch the strength to Linear interpolation and as you move the slider up it will decrease the smartskin. I spent all day working this out. Twelve hours of butt your head against the wall and feel stupid, followed by 10 minutes of clarity. I must have rebuilt the eye controls a dozen different ways, but it works.

Ciao.

[Mega]

I was getting worried there for a minute...glad you are updating your models! After seeing your last post, your model reminds me, facial expressions, of Buzz Lightyear, one of my all time favorite characters! Keep it up. I really enjoy your facial expressions on the model.

 

PS:

Dont forget Skycast!!!!!

[xor]

Lovin' the progress. I hope to find my way there someday with a character or two.

[zacktaich]

Love those new expressions the face untextured looks almost... shocking, next to those bright blue eyes. I love it. I suggest when you texture it you allow his face color to be muted (kinda like the pictures) that would be awesome.

[JohnArtbox]

And now for something completely different. Didn't get much done last week except for the SkyCast launch.

skycast.artboxanimation.com

This one's a bit of both. It's one of the outdoor sets, although the groundplane will be considerably more detailed (rocks, bins,grass & park benches) and there'll be an orphanage in the background. I may decide to create new trees and render in the Alpha(because of that wonderful new fur), but I'm leaving that decision for later. Production work is waiting to be done so updates will be a bit slower.

 

Mirrorsplines was a godsend for mirroring the bones for my characters. I 'boned' one side and grouped it under a parent, then I copied all the bones and scaled them in x(visually) to create the other side. I assigned points and smartskinned one side and let mirrorbones assign the second side and correct any slight errors with the bones' scaling. Very cool.

On the downside mirror smarkskin only copies the muscle smartskin, so I had to go in a mirror the bones in my smartskin by hand.

 

I was going to do this as a poll, but for some reason the site won't let me setup a poll. So I'll just ask. Would you like me to continue this thread or am I being self-indulgent and I should finish the damn short before I waste any more of your time.

Or should I move it to a personal site?

I'm not going to be offended, it's an experiment and if interest is waning I can use the time elsewhere.

ciao. Send me a message with your vote and I'll report the results. I don't want this thread to have 10-15 me too messages on it.

[natess44]

Keep on updating the forum. Your work is awesome.

[HeadlessBill]

The park looks really good. The depth of field adds alot.

 

I hope skycast will be available to Mac users soon.

[JBarrett]

John,

 

Fun looking character! The only comment I have for now is a caution related to the creation of facial morph targets, particularly for the mouth. The targets you've created look good in a sense, but those that open the mouth to any degree are completely leaving out the movement of the actual jaw. And with a chin as pronounced as you've got on that guy, it's really obvious when the jaw isn't moving when it should be. Keep in mind that the lower teeth are connected to the jaw bone, so if his lower teeth go anywhere, the jaw should be driving that motion.

 

Looking forward to seeing more. Keep at it!

[JohnArtbox]

Thanks Nates.

Headless Bill- I'd like to see SkyCast for Mac users too, unfortunately I'm not smart enough to program it. What if we offered a service, access to sets of skycast scenes with the ability to upload your own images to be SkyCasted.You'd get access to SkyCast bonus site with lighting rigs, environment maps, seamless textures, tutorials and models(including those ffrom the parkland scene).

Corndog:The Jaw opens and closes on a separate slider, I did it this way so that I can offset the jaw and mouth if need be. eg keep the mouth closed as I open the Jaw. The lower teeth are locked to the jawbone. I'll find out if it works when I get to animation.