New Character

[brainmuffin]

I'm trying some new techniques with this. My eventual goal is just to finish modeling, rigging, and texturing him. I just want to complete a character, for once.

 

I didn't do any rotoscopes, I'm modeling everything on the fly. I started off with a rough proxy so that I had the proportions I want nailed down before I started:

 

 

 

With the head, I did things a little different too. I made the eye and the mouth by lathing splines, and re-shaping them. The nose I started by lathing a nostril, duplicating it, attaching the two, and then modeling the bulb and bridge. I did the eye first, then the nose, and attached them, then the mouth. I'm sorry I didn't take screenshots. Here's the head in its current, almost completed state:

 

 

And here's an AO render of the head:

 

I'll post my progress here, and hopefully I'll finish him...

[Xtaz]

Hi Lazlo ...

 

Nice proportion in the body (maybe the leg could be a little longer)... I saw that you didn't connect the arms and the legs on the body .. Don´t you intend to do it ?

 

Your head is funny and well modeled .. I have just one critic to do.. Why did you use this spline ( A ) ? It is causing the crease ( B )

 

I suggest you to fix this part of the head like this ( C ) ...

 

Keep us updated ...

[brainmuffin]

Thanks! I'll fix that spline in a bit. The body is just a temporary proxy. I'll be modeling a more detailed geometry over top of it.

[phatso]

Hmm. Modelling by proxy. Somehow I never thought of that, even tho that's essentially what they taught us in drawing class.

[nino banano]

Thanks! I'll fix that spline in a bit. The body is just a temporary proxy. I'll be modeling a more detailed geometry over top of it.

 

Hi Brainmuffin...nice modelling...as you said you are going to rigging this model...once you detailed the body I suggest to add a couple splines more at the joins

to help the character move properly...greetings

[Paul Forwood]

Nice work, Lazzlo!

 

I agree with the comments that Xtaz and Nino have made. Three splines on each joint is usually required but it does depend on the character and just how you intend it to bend.

I think that you could lose one spline from around the mouth. And also try to avoid having hooks in places that will be animated, such as the brows. At the moment I think you will see some unnatural creasing when he frowns.

 

Great start.

[brainmuffin]

Taking C&C into consideration, I've made some adjustments to the head:

 

 

And, yes, Phatso, it's just like laying out guidelines before drawing. Only these are 3d guidelines. Just quickly roughing out form with as few splines as possible. The head, hands, chest, waist and feet are all the same deformed sphere, and the arms and legs are the same cylinder. I'm going to do the hands next, and I plan to rough out a proxy in the same fashion when I do. In the past, I've had problems getting hands to look the way I want, and by the time I've got a full, hi-patch hand made, it's too cumbersome to start tweaking.

[brainmuffin]

I managed to find a few hours today to work on this guy. He now has legs!

 

 

I don't think I'll have a problem with the knees or the ankles, but the hips are always a bit of a problem rigging for me. Any suggestions?

 

Also, I'm planning to use TSM to rig him, does it work in 14c?

[c-wheeler]

I'm afraid TSM2 only works with version12( or early 13?). If you intend to rig with tsm, I would have modeled in ver12(if available), then rigged using tsm, then opend and saved in 14/15.Or you gould just load a set of bones and poses from another model, re position them and reset the compensates, I think.

 

But a far better solution would be to use the squetch rig. Geat to install, great to animate,with cp weighting you get better flexing- plus lots of info on how to do it.

 

I think the splines are ok for the hips - its more to do with weighting/assigning.

[Paul Forwood]

I don't know about TSM1 or A:M15 but TSM2 definitely works with A:M 14. As far as I know TSM2 works with A:M 15 too.

[higginsdj]

I don't know about TSM1 or A:M15 but TSM2 definitely works with A:M 14. As far as I know TSM2 works with A:M 15 too.

 

Was there a TSM2 for the Mac? I have the Windows version but now that I've 'switched'......

 

Cheers

[brainmuffin]

I hope so. I paid good money for TSM2, and I'd like to at least rig one figure with it...

 

I'm taking a break from this guy for a little bit, though. I need time to *win* the architectural challenge for February... I'll be back to him soon though.