Observational drawing - Camperdown 18 Nov 2012

Blend shapes

This is the first time that I came close to bled shapes. I must  admit I had lots of fun doing this, mainly because of drawing, observation and modelling process. 


Great inspiration and resource for me, was the book: Facial Expression. A visual reference for Artists. by Mark Simon.

 Here is the research:

And the outcome:

Since the mood of the film 'Without a Soul' moves across two emotions - happiness and sadness  - facial expression are pretty limited. 

Rig problems

After making first draft of Aldon's rig I have discovered that the outcome of it is quite problematic. Weights and skin deformations seemed to be not working no matter what I did. After looking closely at it and getting some feedback, I have decided to readjust geometry and change the joint position. Unfortunately I've detached  skin in the wrong way so it meant for me redoing weights, which as you can imagine affected schedule quite badly.

You can see problems arasing in the previous post about rigging. Just to repeat how those points used to look like.

The most problematic were shoulders, lower abdomen and groin area, where I needed to add some extra edge loops. And this is how it looks now. Still its not the best option but there is no time to change things at this stage. In some extend adding extra edge loops helped.

Extra edge loops went into wrist are as well.


Additional rig issues:

1.  Twisting at the shoulders and wrists as soon as  the IK handle is moved. To fix this I have moved Elbows controls futher back to allow movement for the arm.

2. Twist in the knee, where the Pole Vectors are causing flipping.  to solve this problem I've parented the control for each knee to its respective foot control.

3. Joint position :

4. Smoothing weights

Additionally the buttons on the shirt were deforming quite badly. To prevent this I have used parent to surface script that you can find in here: http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/duncan/parent_to_surface_script
 

Another issue I've encountered was with blend shapes. Since all the face is constructed with separate meshes I took some time on figuring how to do face expressions. Answer was simple - set driven keys!

The report on how I get on with blend shapes you can find in next post

Week 11 - production diary

This week was not a very good week. Fighting with the cold, fighting with rigging problems. Because of the cold I have decided to stay at home almost all week. I must admit it was a bit solitary experience, but it helped to stay concentrated. Below quick run through the week:

• Monday - Finishing rigging. Painting weights. Watching tutorials. 
• Tuesday - Painting weight. meeting with Jin, my supervisor. Things discussed in the meeting:

• Schedule: Need to move on to my personal project, Jin thinks that I have done enough for the team work of this year. now is the time to concentrate on my own direction.
• Problems with modelling. Scene size.
• Employment direction 
• University requirements vs employment requirements

                        Work in the evening.

• Wednesday - Rigging
• Thursday - Life drawing. Meeting with Carla. Discussing rig and problems with the model.  Work in the evening
• Friday - Design and the Market.
• Weekend  - Work at the pub. researching face expressions

Aldon - Rig Explanation

Rigging for 'Without a Soul'

Rigging is my second specialism for this year. That is my first attempt, I have not done any rigging before.  My plan was to learn rigging rules, combine it with my modelling  and touch  a bit of scripting in MEL. I don't think I can squeeze in scripting into this year schedule. So far my research  was based on a  Digital Tutor's courses: Basic Rigging and Introduction to Rigging in Maya  and 'MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya: Modeling and Animation Controls' by Chris Maraffi. To make whole process more familiar I have decided to make a basic rig, check with Carla (director  of Without a Soul) and add required elements if needed.   Here you can find recorded progress:

1. Drawing a skeleton

 2. Parenting and mirroring 

 2. Foot/Leg rig 

 

 

 

3. Spine Controls 

 

 

4. Arm/Hand Rig

5. Eyes/Brow rig

 6. Global control

 7. Skin Bind

 8. Weight painting

 

 9. Tests