WHOA

DEADLINES SO SOON!?

On to Skinning

I'm trying to put of environment modelling (for this module and another) so I've been experimenting with skinning today.

Well, I'd have love to, but I had to go back and fix broken things on the rig, such as fingers, controls that didn't function and her eyes. Nonetheless, here is a Smooth Bind Molly pulling an odd pose...




I'll start looking into painting weights soon to fix up lumps and odd things. The only thing I'm really really annoyed about is not straightening up her left hands fingers, and that her hair looptys don't bend without melting her face :( I tried...

Animatic I forgot to upload

This is quite old, and I'm hoping I don't have to redo it (But I'm terrible with time constraints...)

I'll either be working on skinning or environment next!

Rory Playblast

Rubbish but a simple playblast to show Rory nodding or nuzzling to Molly... :)

EDIT UPDATE: Textured :)

Cheating Rory's Animation...

Rory (the baby dragon that pops out of the egg) is the "unknown element" that Molly encounters. I've spent the day doodling him and how to approach his modelling, modeled him, UV'd and now rigged/skinned him. Haven't rigged/skinned him well though...

Not entirely sure if I'm to be marked on Rory's skeleton, but at the end of the day A) time is awfully short B) Rory only appears for afew seconds and C) Molly is my top priority.

Nonetheless, Rory!

If I get afew minutes, I'll upload a short video demonstrating a simple (terrible) animation :)

Blend Shape Horrors

Blend Shapes are terrifying... Not making them, no, but the Molly army is.

And these are just for the mouth. I plan on doing a (minimum) 3 more for eye blinks.

I paid particular attention to mouth shapes when creating the blend shapes. I know for sure Molly will be saying "Want to play" "Rory" and "Okay", so I've done mouth shapes:

Aah, Ooh, R, Yo_Ro, K_Yeo, Ay, Ree_Tee, L, P

as well as,

Pout, Neutral, Closed, Smile, Frown, WideOpen_Smile, WideOpen_Frown.

Colour + Molly = Yus!

About time, but she's finally coming together! She's merged, UVed, rigged (mostly), and ready for blend shapes.


Things left for Molly:

x Rig fingers
x Place a locator for her hair rig (bend it the right way)
x alpha map her hair
x fix her eyes
x rig her eyes
x Blend shapes

The Dreaded Essay

I'll be doing my essay (Task 4: Exploration of 3D Character Animation Performance) on a pretty unusal thing... The Nut from the Ice Age saga. But more specifically, I'll be writing about his personification, camera angles/staging, and everything else that makes the nut - for only a minute - seem alive, and in pain.

I can't post the scene itself on the blog, but its when Scrat saves Scratte from the lava cliff, and they instantly fall in love. Scrat, without taking his eyes off Scratte, kicks the nut to the side. The following scenes are of them falling in love as the nut watches them hopelessly.

To brighten up this boring post:

Luscious Poly Hair

Lack of updates due to Pitch Week, Disney Pitch, Pitching Tents and Pitch Forks.

I'm starting to feel alittle behind and unmotivated about 3D Molly. Which is a shame, cause I do love her character and started doodling little "adventures" she could go on with her dragon friend.

The issue is technical, but it's Maya being weird and clipping out Poly's and reappearing every now and again. I've managed to finish the hair, but it wouldn't have taken me so long if I had to guess and stuff. However! I really need it to be working to finish my fingers.

Fingers; grrr. Another issue I'm having, must have redone them 10 times and I still can't get them right.

But!! As soon as the fingers are finished, all thats left is to combine the two mirror cuts and sow up her vertexs from the middle! So nearly there!

In the mean time, hair:

Note: I'll be using Alpha Mapping on her hair, my old friend from 2nd year. This is so I get a transparent affect where Molly has cuts in her fringe/hair.

The Mysterious Egg

1.0 is here! Not sure if I'll use this one for the final, but atleast I have a good texture I could reuse :)

jnt - ik - cntrl - locators

"Molly Rig 1.3" is looking pretty good :D learning a bucket load of rigging in todays lecture, covering basic rigging. In the screenshots above you can see how I've applied them to Molly's leg, so I can lift and twist them, and they're joint to the balls of her feet.

Hope to upload some more work-in-progress rigging soon!

Dee Dee!

So I ran into some problems rigging up my character, so I'm giving the 3D a break this week and looking more into Molly's personality/mannerisims, especially in before and as she finds the egg. We were also told to consider "What what was the character doing before the animation begins?" in a lecture, and I'm thinking Molly was out skipping, having a great time being a kid :P (That's all I've got so far)

Anyway, i've been sitting doodling different "reaction shots" of her face and pose the second she sees the egg. All of them just sort of reminded me of Dee Dee's impulsive "Ooooh, button" gags...

http://youtu.be/vxRezZ2FpBo

Nearly Finished Molly Topology

For tomorrow's practical, we'll be putting a basic skeleton in our models. So I've finally got a near completed Molly for it!

Minus hair and fingers, and I'll probably go into it loads of times to edit misbehaving polys :) But I'm well chuffed, she took me about a week! New record!

Now I need sleep, Molly kept me up til 5.30am yesterday... Totally worth it for bunny slippers though.

It looks like a human! Not a blob!

Omg omg I'm so excited at how sort of okay Molly is looking. (I'm terrible with Maya so I'm super happy :P)

Done the knees, need to do the ankle/feet/slippers, and fix up that wonky arm and give her an elbow :)

Hopefully next update will have a head :)

Grr Starting Again

Gotten to the bit I'm no good at; 3D modelling. I had the start again, but so proud of my so-far torso...!Okies. Now to do the rest. Least I've got the dreaded crotch done...

Final Character Design

Molly 3.0 is born~
I have a cutier version of her I'll upload some other time. Should start uploading 3D models starting Week 4!

Bad Prediction was Bad

Already updating... I suck at predicting things.

Just alittle doodle of my character "Molly". I'm pretty sure she'll be redesigned over and over, but it be nice to keep afew sketches here so when I DO come to update this blog, I can see how she's changed, and see if she kept the original spark I liked about her.

So yes, Molly! Going to keep to the curious innocent child cliche, and see what she grows up to be :)

Blogging, here we go again~

This blog will act as a digital sketchbook when I can't show animation or digital inspiration in my traditional sketchbook.

...I predict I won't update this for afew weeks. :P

- Ceren