Maya Time...

I've been a busy bee in Maya lately. I've managed to knock up most of the model for my stock rig. There have been a few things to consider when modelling:

Posing itself is definitely something to look at from a rigging standpoint. A straight-up T pose is the classic way to model, and seems to be favoured by animators over having arms at a 45 degree angle. However, another useful pose is classed as 'the motorbike rider', which essentially has each joint at a more relaxed pose. The shoulders, elbows and knees are slightly bent, so when it comes to skinning, the body is not set in a particular extreme, giving fewer crazy distortions when say the arm is bent more than if it was modelled purely straight. I've taken this into account to an extent, and I've naturally modelled the knees slightly bent, and the elbows also bent a tiny amount. Through trial and error, I'll see if this technique works, or if I should implement it further.

Here's a quick pic of what I have so far. You may spot that some of the hair is missing, as I haven't got round to modelling that side for an asymmetrical 'do.

On another note, I'm going back to work at RJDM next week, along with James and Brad, to do some more animation work, which should be good. Rather energy draining again I'm sure but quite an experience. I'll be there for 2-3 weeks so I don't really know how much I will progress with my character. On top of that, 360Red got back to me today. Sod's law, as I can't really do the work he wants right now. Bit gutted that I'm going to miss out on that side but hopefully there will be more stuff at hand when I'm finished with this job.

Laters

Scrap it, sculpt again!

This last week has been slightly more constructive than the week before. After looking at my old clay model, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't that happy with it and wanted to start over. I still kept the drawings in mind as they weren't too bad, but something was lost in the 3D process. So here we are again, a nice new concept sketch!

The hair has been simplified for 3D, as well as bringing out the eyes a little, ultimately making the character a little less Keith-ish. Following this,  I started out with a new clay head, perched on a biro.

There's a lot more definition in the face now, such as a stronger brow and a thinner jawline/cheekbones. I'm pretty happy with this, much more than last time. Note the blu-tack piercings... they're not actually going to be on the final model as the character will be linked to closely to mysef, and although this character is going to be a characature of myself, I'd rather it has some sort of difference to act like a stock rig over a direct copy of my face.

Here is the skeleton, made primarily from foil and some pretty thin wire for gardening. That wire had to be twisted on itself a good number of times (8 or 16, I forget) for it to be strong enough to hold the sheer amount of plasticine that would be wrapped round it. However, this frame is still a bit shaky, and when the weight of plasticine is put on, you are essentially fighting gravity over actually creating an ideal design. The foil cuts down on weight, but not enough for you to have an ideal amount of control over your model. To combat this, it's best to have the feet literally pinned down to a base so they can't actually move from the ground. As a pretty shoddy, yet effective, base, I found a bit of skirting board with 2 screws already tapped into it. Fortunately these screws were an ideal space away from each other for each foot without affecting the pose. So the model's feet have about an inch of screw tapped into them to prevent it toppling over. It could still happen like anything, but that worry had been averted.

After a good few hours and the Resident Evil trilogy (nom, Milla Jovovich), the model has been built up, with the head attached to the top of the wire skeleton and smoothed seamlessly. Hands are not that detailed here, as they are so damn tricky to model in Maya, they are a project on their own; I'll leave them clenched here as there's no point trying to make them to scale right now. I have also added fuller cheeks to the head after bringing it together with the body, as they looked a bit flat. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this direction and have fewer doubts about the design than before. This has been used to create front and side orthographic drawings to proportion, and are being used in Maya as we speak. Hopefully, a good model will be viewable next week, as well as a spot of rigging, which I'll try and cover over a few bonus posts, as I know rigging is everybody's enemy and I'd like to share my personal tips to get round the awkward phases. I'll leave you all with an extra picture of the Mikey sculpt, surrounded by the bombsite that is my desk.

Pretty long post today to make up for last week's embarressment. Peace Out!!!

Lazy...

Hmm, not that much to comment on this week. In all honesty, I've done very little since finishing the keys. I did get a positive response from that project, but I've been a little overrelaxed lately.

I did get round to watching the original short of 9 the other day, which was very clever and atmospheric. It will be interesting to see how the mood changes when voices are added to the characters, as well as new enemies for the characters to face. From a character design standpoint, my favourite element of 9 has to be his eyes. Blinking acts like a camera shutter, where the pupil shrinks to close. I thought this was a really cool, unique idea as it still retains all the expression that a standard eye would have, yet assists the feeling that 9 is a manmade character.

I also went to see District 9 yesterday (there's an awful lot of films about lately involving numbers, not sure if there's any relevance though). The feature film trailer for 9 played, and it kind of bugs me how they didn't mention Shaun Acker's name at all, but managed to cram every voice actor in there, as well as Tim Burton himself. I know these people are all well-known and such, but seeing as it was Shaun's original short and he wasn't given any airtime in the trailer, it feels that there's a great element of namedropping there. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the film will be brilliant, but it's just one of those niggles.

Back to the film, yes everyone should see it. It has a nice documentary-esque style to it and the managed to keep a sense of reality there (take note Hollywood, if anything big like aliens on Earth happened, there's a very slim chance of it happening in a big American city.) . The film deals with quite a few serious issues but doesn't patronise you with obvious plot turns. It's left me thinking quite a lot about the whole back story.

I should be thinking of a potential story for a group project, but my mind hasn't come up with anything of any worth. I guess it will happen when I don't think about getting inspired. It's always the way

Some Jolly Keys

Brace yourselves... I have actually been doing work in Maya this week!

In response to a request from 360red in Leicester, I modelled, animated and lit a short scene to demonstrate my 'realism' skills. It should serve as a nice little [pointless] animation as well as some potential VFX work. In the end I made some keys, and a cheesy tagline to go with it

Although it's all secondary, subtle animation, it has made me realise how much I've missed animating. Hopefully a new rig will be underway soon (I'll dedicate some time to sitting down and cracking on in Maya with the orthographics I already have drawn).

On another note, some other former Animation students from DMU and I may be starting a group project, maybe to enter for a film festival or whatever. We shall see about this one. Currently there aren't any stories in all our heads to pick apart and develop but it's early days with this idea. And as the story will take a good few months to get spot on, I'll have to get my animating fix elsewhere. Most likely when the new rig is finished, I will enter the 11 second club or something similar.

In short, this diddy key project has rekindled my love for animation. Not like it ever went away, but I haven't done any in so long.  Roll on more projects!