progress package 2.28.09

ok, lets take a look at what i've done this last week. it's been slow, but i've gotten some significant progress. unfortunately i dont have any videos or animation tests to show at the moment, because i'm not finished skinning the rigs, but here are a few images that basically shows where i'm at.















the dragon's controls are finished. next step: skinning.















here is Saia's father. all i need him for is a quick 2 or 3 second shot, and all you see is silhouette. he doesn't need to be any more complicated than this (although now that i see it i forgot his ears!)















same deal with Saia's mother here. no ears, but you probably wont see them anyway. they are pretty far away from the camera.















here is the flying fish. it's not rigged yet. once it's done it will just be duplicated about 20 times for the few shots that it appears. i can probably copy the animation from one to another as well and just offset them.















last but not least, here is the star, fully rigged and ready to animate! (except for one last critique i recieved about 5 minutes before this post which suggested adding smoe eyelashes to help define her eyes more. (also i need to create the blink blendshape)

as far as the environments go, so far the castle is the only thing that is finished. the boat is a work in progress, and the house should be done next week. I'm going to talk to another student to see if i can borrow their tree for the final shot, otherwise i'll have to make it this week as well.

that's it for now!

Skinning

"Gflaargah! Beast want cookies!"



















Thought this was hilarious. This is why you never stick with automatic skinning!

I'm back online! and rigging

okay, I have successfully moved back into my parents house, and I am reconnected to the internet! (finally...) I will be able to post a lot more now that I have more time to.

ok, so this week I've been focusing on attaching controls to the rigs. I have Saia done (unless something else comes up), and I'm currently working on the dragons controls. I don't really have any pictures to show this week because it looks the same, the only different is that the controls move the bones now. Once I have all the controls finished (for both Saia and Dragon) I will begin the skinning process. Then I will have something to show, because you will be able to see what the controls do.

Dragon with Controls v2

Ha! suck on that demoralizing-problems-i-was-reluctant-to-deal-with-but-did-it-anyways-feelings!






















i remodeled the wings and the hind legs so that i can get a more accurate X,Y,Z rotation on the controls.

Dragon with Controls

Here's the dragon with all his controls that I will need on him (not connected).






















There is however two major flaws that i discovered while I was putting the controls in place. His hind legs and his wings are going to need to be moved because they are not in a world-neutral position at the moment. This is a problem because when I need to connect the controls the 0-rotations for X, Y, and Z are not going to line up with the angle of the pose they are in now. For example, if i wanted to rotate the wing elbow in the Y direction it will bend the wing in a way that isn't believe and you'd swear he broke it. So far the solution I've come up with is quickly remodeling the wings in an upright and straight back position, rebuild the wing skeleton, and reposition the controls in the new configuration. How else I can do this i don't know and I don't have time to experiment.

Dragon with Controls

Saia Face Controls

Here's Saia with her facial controls in place (not connected yet)
it's hard to see because of the color of the controls and the resolution of the image, but they are there, hehe

Controls

here is my progress on Saia's controls. i need to figure out how i'm going to work the face, whether i will add bones to move different points of her mouth and eyebrows, or if i should do it all with blend shapes. i will experiment this week and decide. i know for the dragon i am just going to do bones, because he doesn't use his mouth very much.

(note: nothing is bound or constrained yet, just laid out)

Models done with color!

okay, some good development this week. I finalized the models for saia and her dragon, and i've done my first pass coloring! for the pictures i added some lights to see how it would appear when rendered.