Seraphim

[Scottj3d]

All the recent post's in the R&R section have inspired me to start a new model. I plan to get this one rigged and animated eventually. I have started the model but won't have anything to post until this weekend. Here are the concept images. I am not a religious person but was taken back to a time that could be seen as a religious one. (the experience anyway). I sketched it and sculpted it for my mother when she was experiencing her last four months of life.

[Scottj3d]

And the sculpture of the same. Done with plastilene clay and later made molds of and cast in fiberglas.

[robcat2075]

Fine sculpture! Looks like you understand "3D" already.

[Scottj3d]

Clay in my hands is natural. Adapting to software was (is) difficult. What I like about modeling in AM is even though it is non-tactile,in it's own way it "feels" like sculpting. I wish the animating were as easy! Here's the helmet as of 2 hours of experimenting. No adjustments to the surface yet. I rendered a copy paste to test weather it was proportioned right and figured I'd better get something from AM on the post.

[Guest RemoteViewer]

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[Scottj3d]

Thanks R.V. I want to use this one to learn the skills of rigging. Tried on some other models only to find I have a mental block to get past. I have tsm2 but really don't know enough about getting the bones right where I want them and to move right. I've spent 2 years modeling in AM just because I enjoy it. But recently decided to try moving on. I have another WIP sitting around but I need to learn the basics of rigging and animating characters before I can do anything with it.

[Guest RemoteViewer]

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[Scottj3d]

Here's the armor...or what I have so far. I'm using a rotoscope (prt scrn) of my 1st body to place the pieces. I was planning to put them on top of the model but it would probably be more economical to fill in the gaps. Anybody got any ideas on how to create a material for the "chain" suit under the armor (gaps)

[Scottj3d]

And the rotoscope!

[Scottj3d]

Making some progress! I tossed some wings on to check it out. Still tweaking it.

[Scottj3d]

He's all there now. Gotta make the wings bigger and figure out the creasing on the inner thigh. It's due to the design of the armor and I am not sure how to respline it. Soon as I do that I'll connect the two halves and run TSM2. Once I get rigging him down, I'll decal/texture him.

[Scottj3d]

A semi side view. Not sure yet weather to give him a face or a black shroud.

[KenH]

Nice work. The wings are particularly good.

[Scottj3d]

Thanks Ken. I've enlarged the wings and am about to stitch the halves together. I can't seem to get the copy/flip/attach thing to work right so I'll do it the old fashioned way. I was playing with the lighting here (a bit dark) as I was trying different positions for the lights (AM Native) and the camera.

[Scottj3d]

And stitched.... All that's left is to tie the wings in after I blow them back up(I just noticed they were smaller in the final post?) and then I can start having rigging nightmares. I really want to get him working as I have some images I want to use him for. Thanks for the comments guy's it'll probably take me some time to work out the bones etc.

[Scottj3d]

And a side.

[Mr. Jaqe]

whoa, he really looks good! riggin that dude will be something I would leave for others to do, cuz those wings won't be easy. the only thing the picky side of me noticed that it looks like he got round shoulders, aka. his head is too faar in front of his neck(couldn't find a better way to explain this, after all it's only 12.07 PM and I just got up).

[Guest RemoteViewer]

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[Scottj3d]

Joakim, I see what you mean about the head. I'll be working on that(easy enough). As for rigging..I need to learn somewhere as I don't have any "others" to do it for me(unless you mean the forum) but where there is a will....uh... R.V you're right. I actually was thinking about re-working the belt. I wasn't sure how to approach it. Right now the DISK is just sitting there with no actual "belt" and I'm not "happy"with it. In my first post's the bicep armor was modeled differently so I went back and extruded then broke the underlying splines. I think I can do the same for the belt and maybe lose some cp's on the DISK(I hate that word). I also think I will enlarge the shoulder armor a tad. He's a bit cp heavy due to the wings,belt , hand's and as well as the face shield. I figure I can refine it a bit now that the bulk of the modelling is done. Thanks guy's...I appreciate the input! I'll post up some renders maybe tonight or tomorrow.

[Zaryin]

Wow, that's really turning out. Can't wait to see it textured and posed and put into a cool scene and animated and then a short movie and then maybe a full-length feature and then...*passes out from lack of air*

[Scottj3d]

Jeff..my head hurt's!! I do have an idea for a scene though. If I can get it out of my head and into splines.

[Fuchur]

wow, i like that style... nice

 

*Fuchur*

[Mr. Jaqe]

with that monster on-screen, you don't need no scene!

[Scottj3d]

with that monster on-screen, you don't need no scene!

If you meant my avatar. I admit it was starting to get a bit distracting. It was a gif..t.

[Scottj3d]

What did I say? "easy enough". Well it turned out I had to chop him in half respline and reconnect. It was worth the extra work to stay "true to the concept". Here is the belt updated. I will create the other rings with a bumpmap and try increasing the reflectivity to polish it or possibly make it flat and mirror finished. But input will be appreciated. Having a belt holding the disk does make it more complete.

[Scottj3d]

I know it looks like I keep posting the same thing. Just trying to keep similar angles for comparison. Wings are bigger, the head is moved and the belt is updated.

[Guest RemoteViewer]

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[Scottj3d]

I still need to tweak the belt to show more angle on the edges and maybe try to get the oval more even and lengthen the feathers, but I am glad you pointed it out R.V. The tweaking never really stops though. There is probably a medication out there for it but as long as I don't hurt anyone.....Now to see how many copies I can kill learning to rig it.

[Zaryin]

It's looking great, but I just noticed the thumbs. They seem a tad too big to me.

[Scottj3d]

I'll look at that Jeff. The hands seem thin to me. The arms may be too long as well. Guess I wont know till I get the rig figured out and see if the hands are at the kneecaps when at his side(neandertal Seraphim). Certain perspectives seem odd when I look at it from different angles in the modelling window. Looking from above the head the feet appear to be huge but from the side seem ok. I'll check it out. Thanks

[Mr. Jaqe]

yes, the wings are signifigantly smaller and the arms seems to be a tad too long, other than that, I can find zero mistakeos, but for some reason that belt makes him look...fat? I dunno... It's just that large ring, makes his belly look a bit like a beer belly

[Scottj3d]

A beer belly? C'mon man...I'm still looking at those thumb's. And the wings are definately bigger.....Beer belly? I'm not splittin him again!

[Mr. Jaqe]

Hey! I couldn't come up with anything else! ok, so beer belly was a bad decription, but... you know what I mean! gah, anyways: he looks good! no, BETTER than good, VERY good! and it was just a sugestion

[Scottj3d]

Actually I know the cp's in question there and will tweak them. I just had to defend him (have some fun) as my old self (who was and is not easily offended)is my reference. The top of the belt needs to be brought in just a tad. Thanks for the "kind words" but you did give me an idea for my first attempt at animating him. It'll be something like the old disney stuff where the artist is messing with donald duck while animating (drawing) him.

[Scottj3d]

I've been meaning to ask: Could the face shield be done using booleans or is it a cookie cut. I am trying to thin out some cp's as this model although workable does put a little strain on the PC at times. I've noticed decals can do the same when there are alot of them (probably too big due to my "want" for detail) This was the only way I could make the slots that one would see out of if wearing the helmet.

[Scottj3d]

I wasn't sure if I should post this to the new users area so it is here as it is still a WIP. I am learning the need to model with minimal splinage to help with the rigging process. I have decided to try to knock out as many splines a I can figure out how to without ruining my geometry and losing detail. Copied and pasted half of the "finished" seraphim and named it "seraphim lite" I had asked if I could cut some of the splines on the faceshield by using a cookie cut or booleans. In researching the "right thing to do" I decided to try a transparency map to achieve the same result I had by modelling in the slots for the faceshield. I need to work on the decal a bit but here is what I got. The left helmet is the original showing some of those nasty splines that were slowing my PC down enough to spawn S. Lite. The right shows the much lighter version of the faceshield.

[Scottj3d]

And here the render of the results. There is some antialiasing that may be attributed to the decal. And I am not sure yet if the decal will actually be lighter on the PC than all those splines but once I finish my spline reform I will know for sure. I am going to work on the wing next. All the flight feathers are individually modeled. I am thinking I can create a sheet with splines to cover the whole area the feathers do and use a transparency decal to give the illusion of the row of feathers. I'll post the results when I get there. Any idea's?

[Mr. Jaqe]

I like it! form, reflection, everything! (and most of all: no beer-belly )

[Scottj3d]

I messed around with the wing idea. A shows the original mesh, the individual feathers contain 144 cp's. B shows the"experimental mesh" for the lite version and contains 10 cp's for the individual feathers. C is the decal which is applied as a cookie cut. For some reason it does not work as a transparency although the previous one for the face shield did. A.M is being finicky today(but I still love it). I'll be running TSM2 on the wing tonight to see if folding the wing works better than my attempts with the "heavy" wing did. Joakim I'll have him doing crunches soon:)

[Scottj3d]

And of course the front and side renders. I'm not sure about the aliasing. I suppose for animation with not so close shots the lite one will (in theory) be good. But for close ups I'll want more detail so I'll keep working at the rigging for the original model. Maybe after getting more time in bones mode and in the action window It'll seem less like Kaos trying to figure which cp's to which bone etc. I still need to tweak the upper feathers but this shows that it worked.

[lazz]

To be honest. I liked the original wings you had first a bit better than the ones with the cookie cutter. I realize that the reason you did this was to cut back on splines right? The old ones had more mass to them and blended in with the upper portion of the wing. While the cookie cut looks flat. All in all I am really liking how this model is turning out! You're doing a great job with it. Keep up the good work!

 

-Robert Lazzarini

[Scottj3d]

To be honest. I liked the original wings you had first a bit better than the ones with the cookie cutter. I realize that the reason you did this was to cut back on splines right?

[Scottj3d]

Nothing much to see here. Just to show that I am actually working on the rig. I actually have "most" of the right leg working almost right. I'd like to know if it is possible to give shared control to bones. The knee is moving too far outward to the front at the top of the knee armor. Is this a job for smart skin? I am finding that assigning cp's to bones is more tedious than modelling. This is where I usually say "nope, not ready for this yet" but uh-uh not this time. My hat's off to all the experienced "riggers" out there. I'm using TSM2 so I dont have to add all the concstraints etc. I am getting more comfortable in bones mode though. The leg bones were hidden so I had to fish around in the PWS to find them. (like a child in a dark forest at first)

[luckbat]

Uh-oh. You're supposed to assign CPs to the bones before you run the TSM rigger, not after. Otherwise all your CPs will be assigned to the wrong bones. Check out the video:

 

http://lib1.store.vip.sc5.yahoo.com/lib/ra...pes/TSM2-01.mov

[Scottj3d]

Uh-oh. You're supposed to assign CPs to the bones before you run the TSM rigger, not after. Otherwise all your CPs will be assigned to the wrong bones. Check out the video:

 

Aghh! Wait a minute, I've watched it. I told it to auto assign bones just before running the rigger but it assigns many cp's to the wrong bones. Probably due to the armor. Some of the foot cp's stay where they were when the foot is moved similar to the pic so I have been reassigning them. Is this wrong? Can I test it in the action window before running the rigger? As is I have been bouncing back and forth from the modelling to the action window looking for idle cp's. Once rigged can bone placement be refined?Oh and tsm constraints is on.....Help!!

[luckbat]

Sorry, didn't mean to alarm you like that. As long as you're assigning CPs to the bones in the original pre-rig skeleton, and not to the control bones, you should be okay.

 

Here's an easy trick to do this: On the post-rigged model, in bones mode, whenever you click on a CP that's assigned to an invisible bone, the invisible bone will start blinking. Now you can drag a rectangle or lasso around any CPs and they will be assigned to the blinking bone.

 

That said, you can test your CP/bone assignments before you run the rigger in an Action window--that should save you a little time.

 

Bottom line: as long as you only assign CPs to the original pre-rig bones, you should be okay. You can change these assignments at any time, though as you've learned, it's a little trickier after you've already run the rigger. But not impossible.

[Scottj3d]

There were 2 bones in the thighs 1 on each side that I have assigned cps to that were hidden in the setup window after running the flipper. I have assigned cp's to them after the rigger. After running the rigger and in the action window all the leg bones were hidden so I unhid them as well as the two already mentioned. I take it I should not have assigned cp's to any bones that were not there (visible) immediatly following the flipper. I'll rerig another copy tomorrow after work and start testing it before rigging it That should keep me busy for a few days at my speed. Thanks!

[Zaryin]

Can't really help with the rigging, but it's really coming along nicely. I really like it so far.

[Scottj3d]

Here is what I have been running into. This is why keeping the cp count down is a good thing. I have been struggling to figure out which cp's to connect to which bones and had them better than this shot. TSM2 makes a nice rig but I don't know how to use it. And my wings are not at all folding how I want. I have decided to start fresh and build a tube arm and add my own rig to learn how it all works.

[Scottj3d]

So I made the tube arm(a few times AM didn't like me deleting what I thought was a pose) and it was working out okay so I decided to lopp off an arm and play with it. It was a breeze setting this up (and I know this is simple to many of you) but to me getting here is a big step. I'm gonna figure the wings out (hybrid ones) now and then worry about the whole model. Can I add these bones to a rig and get them into a hierarchy? Or would it be easier to just duplicate build the same set up. Knowing to lock IK on that shoulder bone would have been a plus for me when it moved like the previous post. I still have alot of work to do and more to learn but this was my 2001 moment so I had to share. Forgive me!

Arm3.mov