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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

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Posted

:blink::blink: WOW! That drawing is really anatomically correct...for a superhero! That will be one Bad Ass model. I want to animate it when you finish! :D

Keep up the good work!

Posted

Very, very nice modeling so far! Is that Andy Smith or Bart Sears drawing? I know that Andy changed his style to mimic more of Bart's style. Next time maybe Kirby!! :D Talk about dynamic!

 

Can't wait to see more...

 

Tony

Posted

Man, talk about good muscle defenition. I think he would look good with some sort of flames or broken lava with a glow effect on his hands. And by the way- nice avatar. The Drunken Master is a wicked rad movie.

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Posted

Superheroes will rule this forum yet!

... or is it Supervillians...

 

Makes me feel homesick for the 'ol days;

(Make Mine Marvel!)

 

There I feel better now.

 

Nerrazi,

You are definitely heading in the right direction.

I'm likin' in much!

 

John,

They're trying to squeeze you out!

Post something to put 'em back in their places. ;)

Posted
Is that Andy Smith or Bart Sears drawing?
Hey... you know your stuff! :o It's Andy Smith

 

I think he would look good with some sort of flames or broken lava with a glow effect on his hands.

 

Yeah, I was thinking that too. I might mix it with some cheezy Alam FX. I take that back, Alam is pretty good.

 

John,

They're trying to squeeze you out!

Post something to put 'em back in their places.

 

Are you kiddin'? John's a machine!!! :blink:

Posted

What's your process for modeling that figure? Are you modeling each muscle seperately and then stitching it in with the rest? Or, are you modeling the whole thing in one shot?

Posted
What's your process for modeling that figure? Are you modeling each muscle seperately and then stitching it in with the rest? Or, are you modeling the whole thing in one shot?

 

Ummm.... sort of. For the vast majority of my models I first create an outline of whatever it is I'm modeling. I think it's a good idea to get the general shape down first and then fill it in as needed, this gives you more control over your model than just extruding.

Posted

I like your modeling approach as far as outlining the form first. Very much like art school and defining mass. Hey, maybe I do know some stuff! :D Comics...gotta love them. Too bad they have changed soooo much. Hey, that's a topic for another day. ;)

 

Tony

Posted

thx for the comments all. here's more work on the waist i've recently completed. his arm is in the way on the rotoscope so looks like i'm going to have to do some ad-libbing...

post-7-1078352462.jpg

Posted

A great looking model so far. It's a type of sculpting that I've seen few people post around here, the way it jumps from one topology to another (i.e., the thick muscle bands on the upper leg, moving from a squared groin/waist region up to the ellipsoid abdominals). How are all of those three-pointers you've got behaving so far?

 

Animation-wise, I'm looking at a couple of concerns (which you may already have ways around). One is in the deformation area between the leg and pelvis only having one control loop, in addition to a high aspect-ratio 5-pointer in that immediate area. Are you planning to control this via biasing once the leg starts lifting?

 

Either way, this thing is solid - and a great inspiration for some tricks to try on my own particular model.

Posted
How are all of those three-pointers you've got behaving so far?

 

Three pointers rarely behave themselves if inappropriately used... which most of mine are... :lol:

 

I'm glad you like the model but I don't know how to explain to anyone why I model the way I do except to say that I like to define my models' "form" first before I add detail.

 

REMEMBER (extrustion just doesn't cut it for detailed models)

 

Certain areas that appear questionable due to irregular modeling practices "usually" are that way purposely prior to detail being added. Again, we're shootin' for form first.

 

Key areas of this model will change before it's completely finished particularly in the joints.

 

Since Hash has incorporated the "maintain curvature" feature, modeling in A:M has changed big-time. (for me anyway) I'm no longer limited to just extruding (or the "old school" style of modeling) to achieve a nice smooth surface. Now, after I get the general form of the model looking the way I want it, I simply go back and add or fix splines in problem areas without changing its form... much.

It's the closest thing to sub-divisions A:M has and the principle factor in how I made this superhero model you see. I plan on modeling veins in the top of his hand & forearm using this feature & technique also.

 

So..., if you see problem areas..... they won't be when it's finished. :)

Posted

Understood - I had tried to do some of these things myself (adapting the topologies I've seen the Mayans use on CGtalk and a couple of techniques from Stahlburg's foot tutorial), but having someone who's practiced in that style of working apply it to Hash patches is fantastic for learning.

 

'Maintain curvature,' eh... I guess now that the animation features use biasing correctly (no 'popping' when crossing the 0 line) that also changes the game by a fair amount.

 

Can't wait to see what you would do with smartskin on this guy with these insanely large muscles. Talk about flexin' ;)

Posted

Yeah, he's going to be lot of fun to animate. I'd like to put him on some sort of flying machine like what the Green Goblin had but I guess I need to be more creative. <_<

 

I'll do some smart skin tests on every moving part (even breathing) and post the results in wire-shaded mode.

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Posted

Making excellent progress.

 

I'd like to say as well that your posts are demonstrating the techniques in outstanding form as well.

 

Should convince a few more people to experiment with stitching details into their models as well.

 

Keep splinin'.

Posted (edited)
Should convince a few more people to experiment with stitching details into their models as well.

 

I think so, only thing is it takes forever to build a halfway decent model and you run the risk of creating too many patches in the process.

 

Oh well, I'm finished with his back and now I'm ready to start building his arm. I'm going to start splining the outline of the arm on the opposite side because it's straight and his hand is open. After that, I'll flip it over to the other side and attach it to the exsisting mesh so that he's in the traditional da Vinci T stance.

 

Naa, changed my mind. I'm going to model his left arm because there are good front & side views available.

post-7-1078532268.jpg

Edited by nerrazzi
Posted

Pure and simple, excellent modeling. I really like your approach to shaping your forms. I hope to see more...soon! :)

 

Tony

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Awesome nerrazi. No way my pc could handle that much detail. How are you going to move that guys when your done though?

Posted
How are you going to move that guys when your done though?

Thanks for the compliment Zaryin! Movin' him is going to be tricky but I think it can be done. I'm going to use a whole boat-load of intermediate bones between the shoulder and bicep bones, with each intermediate bone assigned to a certain areas of the mesh so that it bends fluidly. That ought to be one huge, huge headache ;) It'll also have to blended with smartskin.

Posted

CP weights 'eh? I've heard of them but I haven't tried it yet. Specifically, what are they for and are there any tuts showing you how to use them?

Posted

Nerrazzi, what a great looking model you have going.

My only concern is that animating it will be a disaster with so many control points. Sort of goes against what makes the patches such a useful feature though.... meaning that you can have great detail for organic models with very low patch/spline count.

It is such a nice looking piece of art, but I'm thinking animation may prove very difficult

Please keep us posted

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

Posted

Thanks Mike, I know you have a lot of experience with making joints super-bendable and I respect you opinion alot. I can see how hashers would have some reservations about it working right but I'm going to remain optimistic about it until the end.

 

Traditionally, you'd like to get 4 to 6 patches together in a set of three ring splines to make up the shoulder, elbow neck etc... perfect bendable joints, but models like that are just too plain and void of any kind of detail. I love detail, I don't know... I, I just love it man... True, it would have been easier to make this superhero look more like Mr. Incredible but looks like someone's taken that idea <_<

 

Worst comes to worst, it'll make a nice statue in some sort of fighting arena though. B)

Posted

CP Weights allow you to arbitrarily set the strength of a bone's influence on a CP.

 

In the classic example of a cylinder being bent like an elbow, you could either use a fan bone with two Orient Likes at the same strength to the two elbow bones. With CP Weights, you would just set the strength of each of the two bones' influences on the center ring to 50%.

 

This used to be an off-line plugin by Philip Leavens, but has now been integrated into the main Hashcode:

 

http://www.clipsandscripts.com/tutorials/amWeights/index.htm

 

http://www.hash.com/am2004/Modeling/CP%20Weights/index.htm

 

I had assumed that since you seemed to be a Maya guy originally that you would have seen this already, but then we know all about what assumptions do....

Posted

Nerrazzi:

 

I too am working on a very muscular character with a lot of detail and there is one piece of advice that has helped me that you might find useful. Try to keep in mind how the muscles contract/relax as you character moves. Planning ahead and experimenting with how they animate as you model will help you decide where to best place the CPs for detail and animation.

 

A good place to start might be to slap a bone that great shoulder of yours, rotate it through range movement and then watch closely where each of your control points go. There is a good possibility that you will be able to slide your detail enhancing caps along their complementing splines to help simply your Fan-bone/cog/smartskin set ups while still maintaining the detail. It will still be a huge undertaking but I would be very interested in seeing you post your shoulder animation solution. Good luck.

Posted

Bjorn, those CP Weights are the shizel!!! Focusing on modeling and rigging has caused me to overlook some of these new features..., I think I love 'em. I haven't even used them and I think I love 'em! That's it! I'm in love! Looks like less of a hassle than using smartskin with comparable results... Sweeeeet!

 

 

Bruce, that's excellent advice, however, I start with trying to get my model to "look" right first and then I work on the correct cp placement afterward for the rigging portion. I may have to create and or delete splines in some areas to make it functional while maintaing the look of the model... I know that's retarded because I'm only double working myself but if you try it the other way around, I think you find yourself compromising some with your characters overall look, unless your really good at it.

I know that you can also use bump maps in some areas say for example the veins in the arm, wrist & hand. Making a "vein bump map" is a good way to create the illusion of detail while maintaining a low-patch-count model unfortuanately, that doesn't work so smoothly say in my character's shoulder area. Ain't a bump map made that can fake those hills & valleys! :blink:

 

His head & neck are finished and I've been working on the hand to get it made. I'm just about ready to try out some of these great techniques you guys have been suggesting, I'll post the results in Quicktime and information on what I'm doing to make it bend as they become available.

  • 1 month later...
Posted

Okay, here's the deal...

 

I've got a boat load of work and probably won't be able to finish this fella up for a little while, I still need to complete the hand, so... Here's what I'm going to do...

 

This only applies to interested applicants of course.

 

I'm going to present a little challenge, I'll post just the arm & shoulder area of this character for you folks to rig. Whoever can get it to bend fluidly at the shoulder, elbow & wrist I'll give that person the fully completed model (copy/flipped and all) as an award. I'll let you folks decide who the winner is via voting. You could maybe post a quicktime of the arm bending. (I hope this isn't against forum rules...)

 

I've got too many projects going on and rigging that sucker would probably drive me crazy anyway... But if you think you've got what it takes, I'll post the arm sometime this weekend for you guys to download.

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