WIP continued

[Ilidrake]

This is continued from another thread. I'm am continuing this little experiment regardless weather it goes anywhere. Just my way of learning. Attached are shots of what I have so far of this character.

[TheSpleen]

looks good and interesting.

[Walter Baker]

Nice!

[Ilidrake]

Thanks guys. Here's an update. Added a hat and hair/ The feather uses particle hair with a peacock feather texture. Still not happy with the hair on the base of her head but will continue to play with it.

[Ilidrake]

Body and some clothing. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to make her look more like a girl in the face, as I feel the mask seems to make her look like a dude. Maybe I should broaden the mouth a bit???

[jakerupert]

>Maybe I should broaden the mouth a bit???

 

 

By the way, you never showed us, how you solved your eyesocketproblem now?

[thefreshestever]

yeah, more voluminous lips would help, bigger eyes, softer cheekbones, a rounder face... take a look at female cartoon characters, you will see what´s missing or is too much on your model. the softer and rounder the face, the younger she will look... at the moment it could either be a 30 year old man who didn´t get enough to eat or a 50 year old woman when you just look at the face... the thin hair even supports the impression of an old woman.

 

other than that - nice model.

[Ilidrake]

Okay I've spent the morning tweaking the models face. I've removed a great deal of splines that are unneeded. I've also tweaked the eyes, nose, and lips. I also rounded the face a bit. Ive also spent hourse playing with the hair trying to give it a thick full look but have been unable to achieve anything that looks good. Does anyone have any advice on making hair thicker and fuller? I don't mind putting in the effort for grooming I was just wondering what general settings work best. I have version 13 right now...will be updating soon.

[Ilidrake]

I continue to work onthis and can honestly say I've never been more excited about a model. I rounded the face even furthur and the over all look is sooooo much better. kudos for the tips I also reworked the hair, though you can't see it in this shot, I got it into a ponytail and shaped it. The over all look is better. I also wne ahead and rigged in a quick jaw bone to test basic mouth movement and the layout of splines will work so well for animating. So, what do you guys think of her so far? Please, I could use all the pointers you AMers have.

[robcat2075]

She's looking good. When you animate her you'll probably find things to change.

[thefreshestever]

much better now! great job. what about a horse for her to ride ?

[jakerupert]

Well done so far.

 

Could you post a shadedwireframe of your "Zorra" with and without dress for better judgement?

[Ilidrake]

LOL No horse for miss zorra just yet (not sure I could rig one). I still have to work on her boyfriend after I get her rigged and ready to animate. As for a non clothing shot, there isn't one. I modeled her body and then modeled the clothing around it and then deleted any mesh that would bleed through while animating. Thanks for the comments.

[John Bigboote]

Looking good! Is that Serg2's female body?

[tbenefi33]

Nice looking character can't wait to see her shake her hips.

[Ilidrake]

Looking good! Is that Serg2's female body?

Yep, thayt's the one. I didn't feel like modeling and entire body so I just used his. And yes, if I actually do an animation piece with this credit will be given And of course I'm also using it to learn how to be a better splineman. It's a great model and I recommend anyone wanting to learn to pick it up.

[jakerupert]

nice model! (you seem to have some flipped normals still)

[Ilidrake]

Okay, first pose with the new rig. I'm having a lot of problem areas around the upper thighs. I think it's mainly the spline layout. On an after thought I was wondering if you guys have any pointers for rigging? I been checking tuts and such but haven't been able to come up with an affective route. I thought maybe smartskin, but I'm not 100% on how to use it.

[HomeSlice]

Whatever rig you use, follow these same basic steps.

Place the basic geometry bones.

Assign CPs to the bones.

Apply Control Point Weights (There is no magic formula for CP Weights. It just takes lots and lots of practice) There is a tut on weighting a face in the Featured Tutorials section. Since weighting a face is pretty complex, you will probably learn whatever you need from that tut.

If there is some area that absolutely cannot be solved with CP weighting, only then do you resort to Smartskin.

After all CP weighting and Smartskinning is done, *then* install the control rig.

[Ilidrake]

Ah ha!!! I always try to do my weights and fan bones "after" I install the rig. I'm gonna load up the model pre-rig and start over. Thanks for the help guys

[Ilidrake]

So rigging a character has got to be the most complex and frustrating part of a character. So to learn and teach myself I did this guy real quick and have been rigging him for the last two days. So far I've learned alot and this is what i have so far. no animation yet. I've had AM since 9.5 I think and I've never done the first animation piece successfully LOL.

[Ilidrake]

Okay so the rig and all weights are in place. I also used a few fan bones for some of the simplier areas. Not too sure about colors or clothes so I kept it really simple. I'm working on the face rig. I've been looking into getting zign track for AM but haven't come to a conclusion. Is it worth the money or would simple pose sliders work better?

[thefreshestever]

Ah ha!!! I always try to do my weights and fan bones "after" I install the rig. I'm gonna load up the model pre-rig and start over. Thanks for the help guys

 

it doesn´t really matter when you´re doing the weighting. i always weight my characters after installing the control-rig.

[Ilidrake]

So here's a new character head for a model that I will be using in my little animation piece. I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks but I will continue to tweak it.

[jakerupert]

As for rigging may be you have a look at a fanbones setup in my pdf here:

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...2815&st=135

 

 

works great for hips and shoulders....

[Ilidrake]

Started some serious work on this little film. The script is written and i'm working on my still shots for each sequence to get a feel for the timing and such. I'm also doing a bit of lighting experimenting as well to make sure the lighting is close to what I want. Here's a set render from the opening sequence. I think I need to add a few more props but havent decided what I want to add. They always say less is more but this hallway is pretty bare and boring right now.

[Ilidrake]

Here's an update of the main character for my film.

[HomeSlice]

That's looking pretty good so far

[robcat2075]

I like that hair treatment!

[Ilidrake]

Still churning away on this. I'm really enjoying myself. I have a solid story with some deep characters, and that is really helping my energy. I've also not bogging myself down with details. Normally I will work on one model to death, looking for details and never being happy. This round I'm simply working on them and once they get to a point I'm moving on. Are they 100%.......yes they are. For me they are. I'm sure they can be better but I'm happy with them so that's all I'm looking for. I'm also keeping sets simple. This way I can move the project along. If I have time near the end perhaps I will add more details but for now they are 100%.

Speaking of sets here is one I finished today. Its from the opening seq of the film. Comments and crits plz

[TheSpleen]

love the house!

[itsjustme]

The set looks great so far, Lloyd!

[Ilidrake]

Okay I finally started on the rabbit for the movie. He and the boy are the only two actors in the short so that pre-production is kept short. This of course is a render of the rabbit thus far. Comments and crits welcome plz. I'm still messing around with how to do the fur of the rabbit but haven't stumbled upon anything that suits him.

[TheSpleen]

cool rabbit

[Ilidrake]

So each day I have attempted to finish something. Not always the case but I do try to get something done, be it a character or set. So here is the render of what i have accomplished today. The boy, Alex, is about 90% finished, rabbit is about 75%, and the set they are in is about 90%. It won't be long and I'll be ready to begin animating. Wish me luck that I don't fail at this LOL....

 

On a side note anyone know of someone who would like to do some music for this little piece? And what advice would anyone have for adding fur to the rabbit? I tried applying it directly to the surface mesh but the effect was very poor. A skull cap would work in certain places I suppose but I am unsure.

[Ilidrake]

Okay, here is the rabbit with fur!!! I'm really pleased with the way it looks, although this render is a bit washed out. Could someone recommend settings for still images. Thanks.

[Ilidrake]

Today I have hit a milestone!!! I completed all of the dialogue recordings for the characters!!! For this I used FL 9 Studio. A handy piece of software for doing music and speech. I also started actually animating!!! I have begun the blocking process and so far I have 4 parts blocked in!!! Needless to say I'm very excited and I hope the momentum continues. Of course in all this excitment I do have one piece of advice for anyone starting out. Take your time. The actual animation started off slowly because I didn't know where to start. Honestly I pondered this question for two days while modeling. So today i just sat down and started. No paticular place, I just found a scene that appealed to me and I started animating and working on the timing. Before long it was blocked well enough for me to move to the next one. So, hat's off to all of you!!!!

[robcat2075]

Okay, here is the rabbit with fur!!! I'm really pleased with the way it looks, although this render is a bit washed out. Could someone recommend settings for still images. Thanks.

 

I can just barely detect the hair on him, there probably is some way to light that to bring it our more, but I'm not sure.

 

I like character!

[Ilidrake]

Sorry about that robcat. I've actually solved that problem with the hair on the rabbit. I've included a new shot, what do you think? I took a break from modeling and animating and opened up after effects to see what the peices I have so far look like. Crits and comments plz

Comp.mov

[Ilidrake]

So today I continue with work on my characters. I'm currently working on the boy. I have the TSM2 rig installed and now I'm setting up the fanbones for all the joints and I'm very happy with results so far. I would like to know everone's opinion on MoCap for facial animation at this point because that will be the next step is to get all the dialogue and expressions in place once the body is rigged. I thought about a face rig but really don't want to bother with it. The pic below is with his eyes finally rigged with Smartskin and SSS on the skin.

[Ilidrake]

Well I finally have Alex the main character completely rigged with fan bones and a facial rig for mocap purposes. I took some time out of the day to completely clean my system. I mean format the main drive and just give it a fresh start. Needless to say this fixed a lot of problems I been having. So the only thing I have to show off is a render of the main character inside one of the sets I have been working on. On a side note I wrote up a little batch file that gets run each time I complete something that automatically backs up all files to an external source. If anyone is interested I can post it. I know AM has an autosave function but simple redundancy is nice.

[Ilidrake]

Okay I've started animating the scenes for this short and have a small section done. I'm not completely sure about it though. I have the motion pretty much how I want but his wrist pops near the end. I was wondering what you guys would suggest for something like this. I'd like his hands to remain in place until he needs to raise and get up. Suggestions plz

seq_3_4.mov

[Ilidrake]

Well it's been 3 months and this project continues forward!!! This of course is a milestone for me, as i have never finished any sort of project with AM. My above mentioned issues with keeping hands in place has been taken care of along with a slew of other problems. I decided to do some research on the forums and started reading and watching tuts on keyframe animation. Needless to say I have learned quite a bit in the last few days. Things are moving along smoothly for the most part. I think my biggest problem would be learning to animate subtle things. The small emotional parts that give a character, well.....character! Of course I am simply blocking in right now so I suppose the small things like that should be left for the final pass but I still keep them in mind while animating. But I'm rambling now. So for today I have only this render I did to test some lighting for Seq 3.7....enjoy!

[robcat2075]

You got the IK hands figured out, right?

 

Those last two stills look very dark here.

 

Here's some notes on the shot.

 

Ilidrakeshot3_4.mov

[Ilidrake]

Thanks for the feedback Robcat. Ya I figured the hand IK thingy out after I checked out a bunch of your vids on keyframing. After doing just this small clip the realization that I'm not even remotely ready to do this dawned on me. So I've looked around a bit more and joined this site here http://www.11secondclub.com/

A lot of good things to learn from this place and they have a really interesting contests going on. So I think I'm going to leave this project on my harddrive for another day and start concentrating on smaller projects so I can work on my animation skills.

[Ilidrake]

Practical application seems to be my biggest pitfall. The characters I model, I don't think I give them enough thought. At the basic level I simply lay out splines in an eye appealing method without giving very much thought to animation practices. Case in point the main character of my small film. It looks good but the actual spline layout leaves much to be desired while animating. So I've started another character to work on my spline and rigging skills. On a side note I may end up using this character in the film if he works out well. And also Rob after reviewing your small film I think your right. After watching it and reviewing the script Alex laying in the bed is completely useless and does nothing to help move the story along so that scene has been deleted. Thanks again for the feedback. Ive also attached a screen of the new character for feedback. Thanks guys!!!

[Ilidrake]

The main character with the TSM2 Rig installed. So far things are working out much better than before. Normally at this point I would begin installing fanbones but instead I have opted to concentrate on rigging the face as this is something I never really put alot of thought into. I've chosen to use mocap for all facial movements. As I progress I'll upload my work.

[robcat2075]

That face bothers me a bit, but I can't put my finger on it.

[Ilidrake]

Really? Would you like me to upload it so you can take a look at it? It was created in v16RC. Here he is...let me know what you think or what could be better. Thanks robcat

Base_Model_E.mdl

[Ilidrake]

Just doing some random animation with no direction.

walk_off.mov