Basic Walk Cycle

Here is my first walk cycle. Next is the run... fun fun fun!

mockup 2

so this is the first time iv lip synchronized with my character, there is still a lot of mopping up to be done but its on its way now. with luck .

MONEY 2

Here is just a bit more ,including a bit of a walk and some head movements.

making money

ok so here is my first attempt at the lip syncing part of my animation. i will have to tame some of the frames so that they don't flicker the face too much. some of the mouth shapes are just a bit too extreme in this sentance.

Refrence

here is me demonstrating a lazy walk.

A drastic change of events

Unfortunately, time now has run short and the prospect of having a finished film, as in the animatic version posted earlier is somewhat disillusioned and bleak. as opposed to the proposed film , i intend to demonstrate a mechanics reel, and separately a subtle animation- a lip sync / acting skit from a Mitchell and Webb show. The sketch its self is called " farmer ".

turn around there uv boy!

note how the uv's of the jacket go completely squiff on certain frames. this is a major problem and im not sure how to fix it right now. cross your fingers true believers.

oh dear

hear is a quick video to show an earlier attempt at texturing the character. using the toon shader, and a linear ramp on the jumper in comparison to a non linear one for the trousers. i remain uncertain of the mix of 3d and 2d shading.

disaster!!!!

hats ahoy!

glow on the hills

Mats walk Mark 2

here is another playblast, for the first bit of the cycle.

here is the final attempt at the boulder- i have scrapped all of the textures and instead replaced it with a toon shader

Boulders away

Here in the first image have built the main boulder, and painted a texture to wrap around. a blended the texture with the maya toon shader in an attempt to create a high contrasting shadow. unfortunatly this didn't work out and the shadows became washed out. in theory i could tender out the shadows seperatly at a toon and just add them after in after effects.


In the second image i tried to producde a more cartoon like boulder in hope that the shadows would fit. Unfortunatly this failed epically.

in the third image you can see the spherer uv's unwrapped with a texture behind them.

Zoolander!

i found this video far too amusing to not put on to blogger- its only part way through- but watch the shoulders carefully and you mite spot a bit of zoolander! this walk has taken a long time so far, as i have not animated in a long time- but im gratefull for the change!

Tooned

The first two images are just to show that i have sucsessfully managed to make the facial rig work on added geometry, i.e the moustash moves with the lip and the eyebrows also.
The second lot is just a quick toon test to see how well the shadows pop out.

Cedric

finally cedric is perfect... apart from texturing. the fave works wonderfully, after adding an edge loop in the eyebrow, the controlls now have some decent geometry to move and make shapes with. the only thing that bugs me is i need to find what to parent the eyes , teeth , moustash and eyebrows to, to stop them from not moving with the head, i think it may be a case of i forgot to define their geometry while in face machine...*sigh.. back to the grind!

Facial Rigging mark 88

well this must be the 20th time iv had to type in the TFM-*"^"*&^*"E*^E&*T code to load up the damn face machine programme.. and i would like to stay synical about the whole thing but in truth it has saved me a lot of time in trying to find online tutorials and understand them- not to mention the fact it does an impecable job. so i am only a few paint weights behind having my second fully working second rig! however this hasn't been completely smooth. Yesterday i found a flaw, after painting the final weights and more ajustments, i tried to rotate the head up and the chest cavity came clean out of the shirt. Back to work ....

exclusion sets

Just a quick note,exclusion sets cut out a lot of time when it comes to paining weights, as with the webbed hands fiasco, i managed to solve a problem where the legs affected each other and the stomach. This almost looked cool as the portly gents abdomen appeared to bounce, though i think i may have to add an influence object or some blend weights to pull this off properly

Webbed hands

Today i have started to use 'The Setup Machine' and am in the process of rigging my character, after defining the character to the machine, it snaps all its joints and artificial limbs to my somewhat hollow character. Over all this has worked very well, and left me with just a few weights to paint but wait, what happens when i move the finger?! NO thats not right, i have somehow made webbed hands, and now i have aqua man dressed as a farmer.. with a lot of luck, Matt is a fountain of maya knowledge, and spotted a quick solution for me ( well, i say quick ). what i have to do is select the vertices on an individual finger and then through the setup machine, i define an exclusion set, then exclude it from any fingers that may be having an effect on it, i.e. if i want the middle finger to work i have to exclude it from the index and the ring finger , but also have those excluded from the middle finger too- if that makes any sense. Onwards and forwards!

More Man in the mountain

d's stuff

End of the month

Body of a typical middle age bloke.

body has been mirrored, and the head started.

Face is coming togeather.

And finally the face, a fatal extrusion that ended up in a batman face .

Here is a model of my lovely dogcat design , it is shaped how i would like it. the paws have a feel of weight at the end, almsot like a tennis ball in the end of a sock, its kind of floppy but with weight.

Rigging the dogget!

Don't get a head of yourself!

So here is the head mesh! rendered and with a very basic toon shader placed over the top- yes the dog is ginger, i personally like that colour, deal with it.

Animatic

After viewing of my animatic i have realised a few problems the first thing that cropped up was a problem with introducing the characters correctly. At current they are placed as silhouettes in an open establishing shot, to correct this there have been suggestions as to adding a shot before the scenic landscape shot. these have been ; to add the original scene where the dog wakes the old man via farting and they come out side to get fresh air followed by the dog walk scene - the other was to have the man fixing the building and the dog brings him a lead and they go for a walk. I have chosen to go with the second option on this as at the end of the movie the gag is that the house (that is previously lopsided) is propped up and corrected by the boulder, the house repair gives the viewer a visual link to the end of the film and an opportunity to get to know the characters ( i.e. the man could be sat there with a cup of tea and a large bag of sugar or possibly lots of empty cups of tea in a tribute to the stereotype of the yorkshire builder).
The second major criticism with the animatic is the use of camera and a lack of vital shots to show the cycles to be used. this i plan to fix soon, i have a few in mind and am considering blocking them out on maya.

Block modeling

Needless to say, this is not by any means finished- unless you asked me for a turtles head.. i will mould this mess into something usable!