Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted May 2, 2009 Hash Fellow Posted May 2, 2009 Sat down and finished the dragon model. I'm not quite satisfied with the legs, it feels like they're missing SOMEthing. Just can't put my finger on it. A back claw? I'll also be making a saddle for him, but I'll probably get him rigged up first. edit: annnnd just noticed that after I re-found the normals, it flipped his hair patches around so I have to re-do all that. oops. You can select any group and >flip normals Quote
Meowx Posted May 2, 2009 Author Posted May 2, 2009 Thanks all! Ding! that's it! Back claw. Yeah, already flipped the normals back. It was weird, everything was facing the correct direction... except those four patches emitting hair. Fortunately, the right side was still ok - but the left side got reset. So I only had to re-do one side. Quote
Meowx Posted October 25, 2009 Author Posted October 25, 2009 All right, it's been a while. Had another project come up that I just finished, now I'm getting back on track with this. Overhauling a few things, I'll post some updates in the next week or two. Quick question, are cookie cutter maps generally unreliable? I had a badge that I wanted on the character as a c-c but kept getting transparency artifacts. Updated to the latest version, and it helped... but there are still some glitches. Just went ahead and modeled the badge, but for future reference is there a way around this? Tried both .png with transparency and .tga with an alpha channel. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 25, 2009 Hash Fellow Posted October 25, 2009 Quick question, are cookie cutter maps generally unreliable? It seems to depend on if a part of a patch is not within the rectangular bounds of the decal. Just my guess. Try separate color and transparancy decals and make sure they completely cover the patches they contact (meaning hide any patches that dont' have the decal image on them) Quote
Meowx Posted August 13, 2010 Author Posted August 13, 2010 Alright, after a few down months of not having much time to work on stuff due to moving, I've had some time to get back to work. This is the main character of the project and the model is pretty detailed, I've trimmed it down to 15768 patches (which is still pretty damn heavy). Granted, it's been a WiP for a long time now and a bit of a learning journey. Other character for this project will be far lighter, and won't require their models to be quite as heroic. No model is ever done, but I'm finally getting to the point on this one where I'm about ready to put it aside and start picking up work on the other parts of the project I've started over the course of the last few months. Please point out any flaws or offer any constructive criticism on my work thus far, I'm here to learn after all! Finally, here's a quick speech test I animated this morning to try out some lip sync for the actress who will be voicing her. http://modenstudios.com/daughters/speech_test.mov Quote
itsjustme Posted August 14, 2010 Posted August 14, 2010 Great looking model, David! The voice of the actress fits the character too. The only thing that I could find that might be something I could critique is a possible dead-end spline...it might just be the angle I'm seeing it at though. Good luck on the project! Quote
Meowx Posted August 16, 2010 Author Posted August 16, 2010 Thanks! Interesting catch, went back and looked at it (because I didn't remember modeling something like that), turns out it's just a funky angle. It's just two splines, the left-right one and the up-down one, but the top one looks like it angles back unnaturally at the lower resolution in real time. Quote
Meowx Posted August 19, 2010 Author Posted August 19, 2010 Working on a couple new characters, spent the afternoon shaping up the face of this guy. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted August 19, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted August 19, 2010 Those are looking good! Quote
Meowx Posted August 21, 2010 Author Posted August 21, 2010 Having some problems getting a robe to work properly. It seems no matter what I do, the legs start going through and getting stuck. By the end of the simulation, I've got something like this: Is the mesh just not dense enough? Right now I've got the collision distance set to 0.2. If I put it to 0.3 or higher, the cloth disappears after a few frames (presumably too close; too many collisions). Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted August 21, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted August 21, 2010 Does the simulation at least work if you just let the cloth settle and dont' move the legs? Quote
Meowx Posted August 21, 2010 Author Posted August 21, 2010 Yep! The simulation runs fine and the cloth behaves like it should, it just goes through the leg from time to time and then gets stuck. Quote
Meowx Posted August 21, 2010 Author Posted August 21, 2010 Here's a couple movies quick. It's not as bad as it was before now that I've added a few new splines to the legs, but the feet area in particular are still kinda questionable. That being said, this IS a test animation I had created for a different character - so I didn't really animate with a robe in mind at all. Do I just need to be a little more careful animating? http://www.modenstudios.com/clothF.mov http://www.modenstudios.com/clothB.mov Quote
Meowx Posted September 2, 2010 Author Posted September 2, 2010 Came back to this after watching the cloth Tech Talk: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=26015 The video was invaluable!! However, to anyone else having cloth issues - it's the tail end of the video you want. Most of the video goes over the basics of cloth; deflectors, modeling and animating with collision distances, etc. But around the 40 minute mark, just when you think it's "basics" video, there's the really good bits - explaining how to use subdivisions and to start and stop the simulation to work around tough spots. d b Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted September 2, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted September 2, 2010 Cloth gets angry when it gets caught between deflectors such as in an armpit or inside an elbow. I've had success by deleting geometry on those interior areas. I'd also suggest increasing the "damping" values on your cloth to reduce the constant fluttering. Quote
Meowx Posted September 2, 2010 Author Posted September 2, 2010 Awesome Rob, thanks! I'll check out damping, it's set at the default of 0.1 right now. Spent an hour or two on a dragon skull, meant for the top of a staff: Concept of said staff, and the character I'm working on atm: Kinda dreading the sleeves; the robe bottom has given me enough of a headache. I'll probably make them less baggy, or just do away with them altogether. Quote
Meowx Posted September 3, 2010 Author Posted September 3, 2010 Had some spare time tonight, finished up the staff (sans texturing of course): Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted September 3, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted September 3, 2010 That's a very elaborate prop! Me, i would have just put a doorknob on it. Quote
Meowx Posted September 3, 2010 Author Posted September 3, 2010 ...dammit Rob, I'm trying to get work done here and now I just want to make a "Wizard of Doorknobs" character. Quote
Meowx Posted September 14, 2010 Author Posted September 14, 2010 Finishing up the modeling on this guy, a little more armor and should be about ready to rig him up: And starting some texture work on the main antagonist; playing around with texture poses for eye FX: eyefx_test.mov (texture was made from cracked asphalt) Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted September 14, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted September 14, 2010 He's lookin' gruesome! (needs a doorknob) Quote
Admin Rodney Posted September 15, 2010 Admin Posted September 15, 2010 Impressive work thus far! Very nice. Quote
Meowx Posted September 16, 2010 Author Posted September 16, 2010 There will be two basic sets for this project; one indoor and one outdoor. Started playing around with the terrain wizard today and am getting a decent effect by "layering" the terrain by detail levels: Quote
Meowx Posted October 1, 2010 Author Posted October 1, 2010 Alright, been making another dragon over the last couple days. Currently working on the rig, and oh my god am I in love with Matt right now. I used the basic concept behind his pterosaur rig and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I had started rigging the other dragon some time back, but kinda threw my hands up in the air and started working on another character after I got to the wings. Matt's rig not only makes the wings fold beautifully, but I've also added a midsection to the wing surface so it can move up and down with the air current as the wings flap. Drake_Wingtest.mov Quote
jakerupert Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 Fantastic! I will have to try to put that into my dragon myself as well.... Quote
Meowx Posted October 1, 2010 Author Posted October 1, 2010 ty! Forgot to post the actual setup. There's no smartskinning involved. Just a little CP weighting at the base of the "fingers." Pretty straightforward hierarchy. Matt's rig also has some additional bones that attach the wing surface to the body. Great for if your model doesn't connect at the elbow like this one. The relationships are actually controlled by two separate poses. Most of it is simply turned on in the "setup" pose. To make an adjustable slider for the middle parts, I keyed the "orient like" relationships at 0 in the "wing wind" pose and then simply adjusted their Y offset at 100 and -100 to make the bones rotate and the wing surface raise and lower. Coolest part is it's ridiculously easy to set up. Almost all of those relationships are simply default settings, with the exception being "scale to reach" turned on for the kinematic. Quote
Meowx Posted November 12, 2010 Author Posted November 12, 2010 Been working on various other character and environment models; came back to the dragon this afternoon to do some animating. I'm pretty happy with the result! (5.5MB .mov file) edit: The claws digging into the ledge is intentional; I rotated the hand targets and fingers over time. However, after watching it again, I think I overdid it and they look like they're sinking into it some. edit 2: in the screenshot, you can see the highlight and bump on the parts where the wing is supposed to be transparent (opacity maps). how do I fix that? Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted November 12, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted November 12, 2010 Hey that's looking pretty cool! edit 2: in the screenshot, you can see the highlight and bump on the parts where the wing is supposed to be transparent (opacity maps). how do I fix that? Make the image flat in those areas? (no detail) Quote
Meowx Posted November 12, 2010 Author Posted November 12, 2010 Thanks! Yeah, the wing surface is just a plane. No depth. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted November 12, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted November 12, 2010 edit 2: in the screenshot, you can see the highlight and bump on the parts where the wing is supposed to be transparent (opacity maps). how do I fix that? I didn't completely see the problem you were pointing to. I see the phantom portions now. Is there bump detail in those areas? Get rid of that. Make it flat 128 grey in those parts. Possibly the renderer is trying to highlight those bumps just like it would do bumps on transparent glass that were catching the light somehow. Alternatively you may need to add an alpha channel to the bump map to limit its presence to yoru actual wing surface. Your opacity map could probably be copy and pasted for that. Quote
Meowx Posted November 13, 2010 Author Posted November 13, 2010 The bumps are coming from a material that's applied globally. Would it be better to use cookie-cut maps? I imagine the highlight will still show up, even without the bump. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted November 13, 2010 Hash Fellow Posted November 13, 2010 The bumps are coming from a material that's applied globally. Would it be better to use cookie-cut maps? I imagine the highlight will still show up, even without the bump. Use a bump map instead of a material, and put your transparency map in its alpha channel. Test the concept out with just a simple painted bump pattern. Quote
Meowx Posted November 24, 2010 Author Posted November 24, 2010 Been putting off the texture work on this one for a while because it's a bit intricate for a prop, but finally got around to finishing it tonight. A ridiculously heavy two-handed sword. Quote
Meowx Posted March 24, 2011 Author Posted March 24, 2011 Alright, with the help of Mark and David, got the rig and dynamics in my orc guy flipped and functioning! A few keyframes later and here's a quick test of the motion of his armor: Untitled.mov He'll be performing Swan Lake in no time! Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 24, 2011 Hash Fellow Posted March 24, 2011 Alright, with the help of Mark and David, got the rig and dynamics in my orc guy flipped and functioning! A few keyframes later and here's a quick test of the motion of his armor: Untitled.mov He'll be performing Swan Lake in no time! That's working well! Quote
Gerry Posted March 24, 2011 Posted March 24, 2011 I heard there was free candy here! Seriously this is some nice work, and somehow this is the first time I'm seeing this thread. Nice progress! Quote
Meowx Posted April 14, 2011 Author Posted April 14, 2011 Thanks all! Working on textures for another character; did a quick test render for some sprite particle and animated decal fx on the shoulders. Decal is a bit bright, but turned out ok. shoulder_test.mov Quote
*A:M User* Shelton Posted April 14, 2011 *A:M User* Posted April 14, 2011 I have not kept up with this thread. Very nice David Steve Quote
Meowx Posted April 14, 2011 Author Posted April 14, 2011 A little more tweaking in After Effects got me more what I'm looking for: shouldertest_2.mov Quote
Meowx Posted May 9, 2011 Author Posted May 9, 2011 Finished off some texture work and tweaked some smartskin/cp weighting last night, I think this character's pretty much finished! http://www.modenstudios.com/atra_rotate.mov Quote
dblhelix Posted May 9, 2011 Posted May 9, 2011 there might be a problem with that link, explorer doesn't find it? Quote
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