Modeling Project: The Android Sent By CyberLife

 Modeling Project: The Android Sent By CyberLife

 November 2021

 

After the first rigged low-poly models, I wanted to branch out and make more from other franchises and media. Next up is a character from the game Detroit: Become Human: Connor RK800. The android with a mission to hunt down deviants is another of my favorites, and they have a very distinct and iconic design. Using the same methods as the previous projects, I modeled out, rigged, and rendered some cool shots with a fairly functional final product. I set out to make these first three renders, with more to come. The first depicts the character under two lights representing the choice of what path to go down, and the two others depict each path taken.

This project has been in development for a while, and while still not done entirely, I feel like this is a good point to step off and regroup. I fully intend on returning for more. As a result, I can only recall the more recent developments (I'll hopefully do a full write-up later on). This portion, which includes the rigging, weight-painting, shading, and posing/rendering) took only a few sessions of work, ranging 10-12 hours spread across two weeks. Everything aside from the watermarks was composited in the main Blender file.

 

Contrasting the Daughters Dimitrescu, this character is much more conservative and clean-cut in silhouette. As a result, I was faced with different challenges such as forming hair, ears, and a formal suit and tie. The defining adornments for the character are very sleek and integrated. Everything fits together, so nothing hangs out or lays on its own. This project also helped me learn about lighting and emission shaders, which I made good use of for the armband and LED on the forehead.

 

 

I plan to return to this project with more renders and animations. For now I am happy to reach something of a goal point since I was struggling to get back into things. I would certainly like to test the boundaries of a low-poly model like this, and perhaps recreate some scenes from the source material with my own added flare. 

 

Until next time.

 

 

 

 

Modeling Project: UA Livestream Set

 Modeling Project -  UA Livestream Set

 November 2021

 

As tribute to a YouTube channel called Unus Annus, I wanted to recreate the setup for the finale livestream to the best of my abilities in Blender. The premise is fairly simple and achievable. Only a few props are set up and were easy to visualize and potentially replicate in 3D. This was a very fun passion project that provided the perfect balance of challenge to my modeling skills, and drive to succeed as a fan's piece of artwork.

This project only took a few days to complete, broken up across two weeks. Overall, I would estimate it took around 10 hours from start to finish. Each component was easy to define and build sequentially. The props of note were: the chairs(cushions as a single piece and the bar frame), the coffin (base, handles, and lid), the back spiral, the TV(with text), the table, the flower bouquets (with corresponding letter shapes), the top-hat, and the pocket-watches. Additionally, I tried to match the floor and back wall textures. All of the above were modeled from scratch by myself, and almost all textures were done by myself as well with the exception of the spiral design. This was a big teaching moment for how textures and lighting work.

With the final render finished, I think it turned out better than I could have hoped for. There is still a lot for me to learn about rendering and scene composition, but everything I wanted to get done was checked off the list.

Memento Mori

 

 

 

 

Full Project - Toa Hagah

 

 Full Project - Toa Hagah

August 2021

 

 

This project took me back to my roots of Lego and Bionicle characters. I once again put my skills to the test for modeling, rigging, and rendering. This time around, I had some new techniques to test out and plenty of new challenges to face along the way. This initially started out as a small fan project, but quickly evolved into a real piece of work I could not afford to leave out of my portfolio. So now I'm here to detail the work process.

This project took about two months to accomplish. However, I did take a brief break in between work periods. Overall, it was done in approximately a month and a half. With one to two hours (and possibly three later in the game) of progress daily for said work period, I feel that this project was much more lax in the beginning and ramped up towards the end as I was yearning to finish.

 

For the full write-up where I go in-depth about every step of the journey, please check out the project's landing page.

https://thenicholasng.blogspot.com/p/toa-hagah-full-project-synopsis.html

 

Full Project - Daughters Dimitrescu

 Full Project - Daughters Dimitrescu

July 2021

 

 

As part of a fan art initiative, I recreated the Dimitrescu daughters from the game Resident Evil: Village with my own style. I built these characters up from scratch, applying my skills in modeling, rigging, and animation. Many references were used from the official characters, but I largely wanted to take up the challenge of doing it all on my own.

This project as a whole took about two months, covering all three main components plus posing and rendering out individual photos for social media; taking around 2-3 hours of work per day. Modeling comprised about 3-4 weeks of the time, rigging took 1-2 weeks, and animation/rendering took 1-2 weeks.

This project was meant to test my skills as a 3D artist across many areas of expertise, helping me to realize what I am most confident in down to what I feel could use work or I would rather not do in a potential professional environment. 

For the full write-up where I go in-depth about every step of the journey, please check out the project's landing page.

https://thenicholasng.blogspot.com/p/the-daughters-dimitrescu-full-project.html

Animation Project: Body Mechanics - Part 4

 

 Animation Project - Body Mechanics

Part 4 - Overlap, Hands, and Refinement

June 2021

This project reaches its end as I have finished adding in the hand movements and final tweaks for the animation. With this last stretch of practice, I have gone back to further push the fluidity and timing of the animation. This segment took about twelve hours across six days of work to complete. I am happy to say this will be the final post on this project, at least for the time being.

 

I have observed what movements work best, and even taken out some steps that I felt served their purpose for blocking, but ultimately did not fit as well for an animated application. Small frame changes here and there that passed very fast were cut in order to maintain a better flow. I have found that it is better to have consistent and readable movement is better than complete accuracy to the reference material. One example is the quick motions in the torso and feet that really only last for a couple of frames. When played back in real time, while it does still sync up with the reference, the animation itself appears jittery, and too spastic for the common viewer to really pick up on. It would end up looking more wrong rather than right. Another example is keeping versus moving away from accurate timing in favor of fluid and snappy animations. While I preferred to sync the key frames, in-betweens, and holds as accurately as possible in the initial move to spline, in the end it was better to either shrink or extend the range of movements to really sell a movement as quick and energetic or paused and eccentric. I am glad to have taken and accepted such liberties.

Additionally, I implemented the finger/hand movements which I had neglected up until this point. I set up a library of poses for the most basic hand stances like neutral, clamped fist, pointing, and so on. I called upon these as was necessary as I played through the full animation, inserting them where it fit best. This process was very efficient, and in the end, worked seamlessly with the more intricate movements across the body. In this case, having a less-is-more mentality worked out, because viewers would be more focused on the overall sequence rather than something as fleeting as hand motions.

The challenges faced in this final stretch really came from the repetition and struggle to find balance between reference accuracy and personalized movement. Once I finished the finger and hand integration, it was a matter of going back through and seeing what works and what doesn't. Some parts had a really good transition from start to finish, while others seemed to have problems that I perhaps could have foreseen earlier and fixed, but now were too far gone to start over. In consequence, I tweaked what I could and ultimately settled for that. In another attempt, I might look closer at what movements to take more liberty with before diving into the intricate changes.

In conclusion, this project has taught me so much about what it takes to do a dynamic animation of a character. I was a bit overwhelmed by the scope of the project and how much of a challenge is posed, despite considering it a decent and necessary length of animation to tackle. It had many repeating movements, challenging twists and turns, and a varied pace that required extensive thinking in order to bring it all together. For the future, I would like to keep my scope tempered, maybe even more than this time.

My main takeaway from this project is to have an even better foresight and motivation for the desired outcome of a project. I feel I have gotten a much better idea of finding what I want to make versus what I expect to make. This project came out almost exactly as I had envisioned, and I am very happy to have reached a satisfactory endpoint.

 

 

 

Animation Project: Body Mechanics - Part 3

 

 Animation Project - Body Mechanics

Part 3 - Spline and Timing

June 2021

I have taken the next step in developing this animation by moving into spline. Going through the same segments outlined before, I checked to see how well the animated sequence held up with streamlined in-betweens. Overall, it was fairly in tune with the source reference, but in need of some significant improvements for fluidity and time syncing. This process took about 24 hours of on-and-off work to move from the last progress point to here.

This part of the animation process was particularly difficult because not everything translated as expected going from key poses to full spline animation. Some poses needed to be redone in order to maintain the proper motions that preceded or followed. Additionally, certain poses needed holds so they could last longer, like the source material. I made the mistake of separating out keys among different joints before this, and had to double back and re-sync. I made sure not to worry too much about getting the exact frame-for-frame replica. That leaves room for improvement and exaggeration on my part for a better and more unique animation.

Next up will be further refinement, and implementation of hand/finger joint motions finally.

 

 

 

 

 

Animation Project: Body Mechanics - Part 2

 

 Animation Project - Body Mechanics

Part 2 - Blocking In-Betweens

May 2021

This latest progress report has taken me through the next and likely final blocking phase for this animation. Additionally, in response to my previous render, I have synced the key poses up with the reference video.

This time around was much easier, as it was mainly based around tweaking and foresight going from blocked to spline animation. In preparation for the next step, it is essential to actually take a few segments and analyze the start and ending keyframes in spline, since joints can have extra movements that occur in passing, not important enough to carve out an entire pose for the entire character. Certain arm flourishes, leg twists, and overall timing of the body flexing were implemented. Some parts needed to be sped up or slowed down when approaching the next key pose.

The challenges this time centered around the accentuated poses. As a creative choice, I want some movements to be exaggerated in order to convey a better flow of body mechanics. Since the reference only goes so far to help drive the animation, I had to imagine what areas could be pushed further, and what needed to stay dialed back for the sake of realistic movement.

With this next part of the project finished, I now move on to spline animation, which will test whether or not my blocking was effective enough. I hope to also add in the finger joint movement in effort to match the reference even better. I may slow down and split the overall scene to focus on specific segments for the following progress reports. Eventually, all should come together for a presentable final product.

 

 

 

 

 

Animation Project: Body Mechanics - Part 1

 Animation Project - Body Mechanics

Part 1 - Blocking Phase

May 2021

 My latest animation project will demonstrate and help my practice of body mechanics. I have chosen a dance sequence to base my animation on for key poses and flow. Throughout this process, I hope to hone my skills and gain a better understanding of dynamic movements for full-body animations. This first progress report has taken me through about a week's worth of work, 2-3 hours per day.

 

This initial phase is strictly blocking, and what I have to present today is about a third of the intended length of animation. I tried to keep to as few but crucial key poses as possible in matching the source material. I started with just the center of gravity, spine, head, and feet movements, in order to get the most important shapes of the body down. I then moved on to the arms and hands, plus shoulders. Next I will move to the fingers, and after that the in-between poses wherever they may be needed. I have yet to adjust the timing of animation to the corresponding audio, but will do so once I begin the next phase. The source material has repeating motions, so I plan to copy the key poses, but alter them to make each phase unique in the future. Otherwise, the process has gone very well, and I am excited to move forward.

 

 Source video:

 MYLEE Dance Workout - Levitating

timecode  0:27 - 0:57

So far, no hardships getting the motions and poses I'm looking for. I am, however, sticking very close to the key poses. I intend to stretch the rig to more extreme poses in order to convey more dynamic motion later on. For now, matching the poses gets the job done. It will depend on how it looks once I begin to ease into spline.

Animation Project: Dialogue #01 - Part 3

 

 Animation Project - Dialogue #01

Part 3 - First Full Pass

April 2021

 This is the last progress report for this initial segment of animating a dialogue piece. After refining the mouth animations, I went ahead to animate the body movements and set up the camera. Since I purposefully split the dialogue into separate parts, I moved the camera as if they are connected scenes without being one single shot. Once synced up, I did my best to convey proper flow and rhythm to the overall animation. The rig I have used for this project is the Polly rig from NoisyChain on Turbosquid.

https://youtu.be/wThv1hLdfTk 

It was much easier to block out the body movements based on the reference video I shot, with multiple passes. I picked the most impactful poses and tried to replicate as close as possible. However, I did take liberties and also tried to accentuate the character 's movements in order to make the animation more dynamic. Sticking too close to the real-world proportions would dampen the readability of the scene. Once blocking was done, switching to spline and editing the in-betweens was not too tough. 

There were parts where it was difficult to pace the facial animation alongside the body motions so that the character was still relevant to the camera. I only wanted a stationary camera for this first dialogue piece, so no fancy movements from the viewpoint. This was meant to convey the audience as actual onlookers in the scene. 

Additionally, one of the hardest parts was not going too far with the body animation. Sometimes during the process, I found myself exaggerating the movements too much, and at the expense of the perspective I had already established. The character would turn too far or flow way too bouncy or stiff at times. Upon re-evaluation, I went back to fix as much as I could, but evidently some parts are still a bit much for the tone of the dialogue.

Overall, this has been a teaching moment for my journey with animating. I do not think this project turned out as I would have hoped, but at least I was able to reach an endpoint. I will leave this project alone for a little bit in order to focus on other things. I would like to return to this in time, but for now I think I need to put my mind elsewhere, so perhaps I can come back with new and fresh ideas. I feel that in order to improve, I would be better off restarting the whole process with a different strategy.

Rigging Project: Pigsy

 Rigging Project: Pigsy

April 2021

This is my latest project, the first of many hopefully leading to a fun final product. Pigsy is their name, and they are a sentient piggy-bank set to be the main star in my developing animated short. This is my first original character built from the ground up from conceptualization to fully rigged model.

This rig has full rotation capabilities in the body, head, and limbs. Movement in 3D space can be achieved with either the main body control, or the root control. The face has some more specific controls, such as a head tilt (in place of a neck), nose tilt, and one of my favorites: eyebrow movement and manipulation. Finally, the eyes are 2D grafted onto the model, made by an image sequence which can be toggled to display one of the many eye textures I have drawn up. There are also a few more specialized features intended to enhance the animated scenes to come.

As this is my first original character made from the ground up, I was hesitant to dive into the vast pipeline from modeling to rigging to animation, but by keeping my ambitions in check, I was fairly confident I could do it all on without having to compromise too much. I am happy to say I was able to accomplish what I set out to create almost exactly.

Making the armature for Pigsy didn't take too long, as I actually started building it as I modeled the character parts. Once I got to the actual rigging process, I ran through the process as I had envisioned and just observed what worked as intended and what didn't. The legs, body, and main head controls went together flawlessly. Meanwhile, with the help of a few tutorials, the eye texturing and eyebrow controls turned out alright as well. 

 

 

The only real point trouble was the eyebrow manipulators, as I wanted the easiest way to get clean deformation without too complex a rigging system. The solution was lattice deformation, which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. With one control on each end of each eyebrow, I can squash and stretch to just about any extreme, which should prove very useful for expressions in animation. I am very proud and excited to see what I can do with such a feature.

This rig was a nice challenge to have as my first original character. On one hand, I had a clear vision of what I wanted the character to be capable of. On the other hand, there were obvious tasks I would have to face and problem solve for. The finished product has just about all I had hoped for. 

I began development of my first original character and soon-to-be short animation a little over a month ago, and this is one of the largest steps so far. This is the first result of my labors. I hope to push forward and begin animation and scene building next, but before that, I must begin production of additional assets and other necessary materials. Luckily, the main model here is out of the way, so the process will be a bit less stressful in the days to come.

Modeling Project: Pigsy

 Modeling Project: Pigsy

March 2021

This is my latest project, the first of many hopefully leading to a fun final product. Pigsy is their name, and they are a sentient piggy-bank set to be the main star in my developing animated short. This is my first original character built from the ground up from conceptualization to fully rigged model.

This model is a modular build, consisting of only a few simple shapes. My goal is to have it fully rigged for animation, with a list of capabilities all my own in mind. Of the many individual shapes, the main components are the body, head, legs, and head accessories. 

 

The body, probably the easiest to make, is simply a rounded balloon-looking piece that I only needed to add a coin slot on the top and a nub for a tail on the upper back end. The head was a fun task, as it really helped me understand what subdivision surface modeling could do. With only a few protrusions from a simple sphere, I was able to get the basic shape of the ears. With only a few rounds of trial and error, a simple subdivision and polishing of the polygons got me to right where I wanted to be.

The legs were a piece I wanted to be as simple as possible. I wanted the overall model to be as close to a real-life piggy bank with cartoon proportions as possible. Seeing as some piggy banks don't even have separated feet components, I opted for an easy and simple design of a barrel-like structure. I personally found the shape to be aesthetically pleasing, and it fit in the other parts of the model. After completion, I duplicated and spread out four of the limbs.

The rest of the pieces were easy to achieve with simple tweaks to primitives. The eyebrows are elongated spheres, the nose and nose barrel come from cylinders. With a few fixes to the geometry, all came together very nicely, with reasonable topology.

 

Overall , there weren't many hardships as far as modeling is concerned. I took a few liberties translating my concept art to the 3D silhouette, but overall the model is optimized as best it can be for what I am aiming for in rigging and animation down the line. Next up comes rigging, and beyond that more asset modeling and animation.

Animation Project: Dialogue #01 - Part 2

 

 Animation Project - Dialogue #01

Part 2 - Refining Mouth Animation

March 2021

 The turnover for this progress report was pretty fast, as I mainly finished up the second and third segments of syncing, then strung them all together. After that, I went back through to refine the timing and streamline the breaks and flow. Now the full mouth animation is complete, aside from a few more tweaks I may make once I begin animating the rest of the body. So far, the pacing is still a bit fast, but it is much more readable and relative to the audio. The rig I have used for this project is the Polly rig from NoisyChain on Turbosquid.

After seeing how the first segment turned out, I had better foresight going into the completion of the other segments. The first was particularly fast-paced and hard to read at certain frames. As a result, I tried my hardest to slow down the key frames, and maximized my time allotted for each spoken phrase. However, with so much dialogue going through so fast, it was hard to determine which movements were major enough to stay, and which were unnecessary in the long run. After having cut out what I could, the animation has cleared up substantially. For now, it is workable, and I will move on, but there is still some timing to take care of, as well as some further cuts potentially.

For now, I am leaving the mouth animations as they are. I feel that in order to refine it even more requires playing to the camera rather than nailing down the minute details that might not even show through in the end. So, I will be moving onto the blocking for the whole body animations next. Hopefully that will give me new perspective on making this animation even better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animation Project: Dialogue #01 - Part 1

 

 Animation Project - Dialogue #01

Part 1 - Blocking and Mouth Animation

March 2021

This is the first progress report for a larger animation project. I am creating an animated dialogue piece for my portfolio. This particular animation has been split into three segments, each being subject to their own multiple phases/passes of animation. This will likely take a while to complete as intended, but I plan on reaching certain goals periodically, maybe not all in one go. The rig I have used for this project is the Polly rig from NoisyChain on Turbosquid.

The project as a whole, once finished, will have a cohesive flow of facial and body movements synced with the chosen audio clip. I plan to move from the mouth animations to the rest of the face, and then the full body. I also plan to move through each of the three segments equally in terms of refinement. As of now, the plan is to move from blocking - refining - timing - finalization for each of the aforementioned phases. So far, blocking has taken place for the entirety of the mouth animations, and refinement and timing are underway.

For this first part of the dialogue, I have synced the mouth shapes and movements fairly close to the audio clip. For reference, I did some blocking in real-time video, and also made sure to save specific mouth expressions to call back for an easier process. The in-between movements were tailored as needed depending on how fast or slow the audio pacing was.

 (Segment 1/3, refined and synced with audio)

 

The hardships of the initial stages for this project were mainly getting familiar with the base mouth shapes. I used the standard charts for facial animations and tried to get as close as possible using the provided manipulators on the rig. Furthermore, the rig is relatively new to me, and it took some time to get familiar with the controls. In fact, there is much more to explore, once I move on past the mouth to the rest of the face, and eventually the entire body controls.

For the refining stage of the first and currently second and third segments, it has been particularly tough keeping in sync with the audio while also keeping the expression readable. The timing is important because some parts of the speech are faster, and others are slower, not to mention the various pauses. As a compromise, some key shapes must be cut out or expressed in transition. From what I learned from lectures, sometimes less is more when animating dialogue. It is more important to accentuate the extreme poses and the natural flow rather than fit in every single movement.

The remaining two parts of the dialogue are blocked out with the basic shapes, however the syncing is not complete, so they will be included with the next post. In the meantime, I will be going through and streamlining each individual clip, then eventually blocking out shapes that will merge them together once rendered out for compilation in editing. As mentioned before, once the mouth animation is finished, or up to an acceptable level for me, I will move on to the next phase and repeat the process.

Modeling Project: Hourglass + Skulls February 2021

 

 Modeling Project - Part 2: Hourglass + Skulls

February 2021

As an addition to the hourglass project, I modeled a skull (with jaw and teeth) that would fit inside. This project was concurrent and was intended to compliment the aesthetic of the overall model project.

This project overall was inspired and modeled in reference to this image, depicting an ominous hourglass with skulls inside. I wanted to replicate it in a 3D space, and put my own spin on it with the realistic textures and particle simulation.

 The skull in particular was another means to practice and brush up on my modeling skills. This was no uniform modeling project like a box or machinery. I needed to visualize and understand the organic shaping and context for the curves and real-life measurements of skull and bone. I started out with orthographic references, plotting vertexes and extruding where necessary. To complete the final product, beveling and solidifying edges gave the smooth look. I took some liberties with the modeling in order to make the model fit into a 3D space. Some angles are sharper, and others are wider than their projected measurements according to the reference pictures. Overall, it was a successful attempt to replicate and also make the project my own.

 

Some noticeable hardships with this project were figuring out which edges needed more thickness, and which needed to be smoothed out more. One challenge was the gap on the side of the skull, where, from the front, its hard to notice, but on the side there is a noticeable dip where the dome of the skull expands into the front-facing features. Additionally, the jawbone has much more curvature and volume on the inside, which I did not realize until I later down the line. As a result, I had to do some extruding and sewing back of vertices to try to recreate the gaps which were lost. I am not sure what an easier alternative solution would have been, but the compromise seemed to pay off. After all, not all skeletons are the same. In fact, this model may well be too uniform for a realistic standard.

This project was a big step in understanding my current limits with modeling. This model in particular ended up very nice and about what I anticipated when I started. The topology was about as tight and well-formed as I could get. With more time and effort (and polygons to manipulate) I could definitely improve things like spacing, smoothness, and much more. I could have modeled the interior of both jaw and skull, not to mention focusing on the individual teeth. However, for what I was going for, this fits the bill pretty spot on.

 pictured: model without smooth shading

 Once I exported the skull model into the hourglass, it was smooth sailing. I created two skull duplicates to place in the upper and lower sections of the hourglass, clipping them into the "sand" geometry. Then, I gave them all a particle effect, paired with weight painting, to give them a bit of sand buildup along the sides. This certainly could have been refined more, and the sand could be made to look closer to the textured material, but in the interest of time and computing power, I settled for what I could. I replicated the collision effects from the previous plain hourglass render for the bottom-half components, so the sand particles would interact and fall off in a realistic fashion. In this version, the sand interacts with the skull, sand, and glass if necessary. Some tweaks to the dampening and friction were needed, and in the end it all came together practically perfect. This was a lovely multi-part experiment, and I am very thrilled with the results.

 

 

 

here is the final render, animated

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modeling Project: Hourglass - February 2021

 Modeling Project - Part 1: Hourglass

February 2021

For this project, I aimed to brush up on my modeling skills, starting out with a simple hourglass. In addition, I tried out and added a particle simulation to the finished product.

This model took only a week to complete, as far as this part of the project is concerned. The first step was fairly easy, starting with primitive shapes and slowly modeling them into the necessary forms. Only three unique shapes needed to be modeled individually, as the base and top share the same base form, as do the two poles. Meanwhile, the glass itself is one whole shape, with two sand shapes being booleans which were scaled down to give the illusion of mass within the glass.

After the initial modeling, I marked and unfolded the UVs, and proceeded to organize them for texture mapping. For this project, I used a single sheet for the hourglass components, and another for the sand. If I were to optimize it for more professional use, I would condense the UVs all into a single map. But for experimental purposes, I elected to keep the sand texture separate. The sand texture in particular was interesting to work on, because I used displacement and randomization nodes to help add more depth and detail to the render, despite the object having flat geometry, with a flat texture. It was especially fun to see that in renders in conjunction with the glass which gives its own distortion of the inner objects.

 

Once finished with the modeling portion, I wanted to take it a step further. Since this was meant to be a semi-realistic hourglass, I wanted to add sand actually falling from the top of the glass to the bottom. Initially, it would have been ideal to forego the faux sand shapes and instead use a particle simulation to then generate a mass amount of "sand" to fill and fall through the hourglass. However, seeing as particle simulations are very taxing on renders and computer processing and I am new to the subject of particle simulations, I opted for something much easier. Implementing a simple particle spawnpoint in the neck of the glass, I only needed to set up the amount, velocity, and constraints on the sand particles. This particle simulation only needs to flow in one direction, with the particles only requiring collision feedback from 1-2 surfaces: the lower sand, and the glass if necessary. In addition, I learned how to randomize factors for the simulation such as color, size, dampening, and friction upon collision.

 

Overall, this project was a very fun way to brush up on modeling again, as well as learn some new skills that may come in handy for future endeavors. The toughest part was definitely getting re-acquainted with UV organization. While not the perfect or most realistic model in the end, I think this hourglass is a good starting point for even better final products.

 

 

 

Rigging Project: Helryx - February 2021

Rigging Project: Helryx

February 2021

This is the newest project in practicing character rigging. Nothing too special about this rig aside from hose cables that travel between multiple joints. This character includes all standard sets of joints and controls of a biped rig. The rig includes an FK/IK switch for all four limbs, able to be toggled within the root control. The rig also includes a set of accessories to be parented and used during animation. This rig was made as a follow-along to a rigging tutorial set, however it was largely a matter of taking the lessons and retrofitting them for the base model of my own choosing.

The limitations of this rig are largely a matter of the base model used. Very dynamic poses can be accomplished with the rig, so the only thing holding it back is the user's desire for realistic movements or not. For example: the base model's elbows are implied to only rotate and twist on one axis. So, while I have put restrictions on the rig's FK elbow controls for said axis, the IK controls make it so that the arms are free to move around as they like with the help of the pole targets. This may break the immersion implied by the model, but again, it is up to the user and their interests.

 

FK/IK switch attribute panel in root control

 

In order to complete this rig, I needed to learn how to implement an FK/IK switch, which did not prove too difficult a task. Secondly, I needed to include extra joint chains (and pole target controls if necessary) that would deform the multiple hoses. The pole targets for the IK controls move proportionally, such that animations and poses can be made fairly extreme before invoking any wacky joint results.

It was particularly challenging to figure out what joints needed to be parented to one another to properly convey the proper connection points from A to B. For example: the two hoses that connect the head and torso are parented to the spine joint, but the chains' IK targets are subsequently parented to the head, so that when the head moves, it also drags/carries the hose geometry as if they had weight and moved in real space. Furthermore, one hose connects the torso and left forearm, and another connects the torso to the right leg. In consequence, the connections prompt a bit o foresight for users, as the corresponding body parts can only be moved so much before stretching the hoses beyond their limits.

  A rendered image of the model

This blog post will be updated with demonstration video(s) soon.

Animation Project: Dialogue - January 2021

 Animation Project: Dialogue

January 2021

In this project, I wanted to practice animating with audio queues and dialogue. With two characters in the scene, but only one portraying the bulk of animated movements, the task was relatively straightforward. Only one character is speaking and moving through space, so i tried to keep the focus on them, despite the second character being stagnant in the foreground. This animation was meant to help my understanding of timing movements to dialogue from the torso, head, arms, legs (with footsteps) and more.

 https://youtu.be/SGj3TUyP0-I

The toughest part of this project was getting the speaking character from point A to B to C in the time allotted. What I did to start this animation process was block out poses for the major actions I wanted to take place. From there, I animated the holds and in-betweens, which went smoothly. However, when the time came to animate the character moving through space, it then occurred to me how troublesome it might be to retain a sense of balance between realistic and cartoony motion. The dialogue provided did not allow enough time to move while taking a reasonable amount of steps without stretching joints into awkward positions. I feel that I compromised where I could, and perhaps for the future, I should consider earlier on whether I want a more grounded look and pace of actions or a more eccentric style like video games and cartoons.

If I were to devote more time to this animation, I would likely begin work on the second character and their potential movements. While the focus is the main character with the speaking role, I would like to learn about how to make the scene more lively with extra foreground and background movement but without taking away from the primary focus.

Animation Project: Surf Cycle - Fall 2020

 Animation Project: Surf Cycle

Fall 2020

In this project, I decided to animate a character surfing loop. This was meant to be a video game-style cycle, with cartoon motions. I did try to gather references, but most were either too dynamic for what I was aiming for, or too grounded in realistic motion, whereas my animation is only meant to stay in one place, only simulating movement through space. With that said, my animation could be interpreted as a template for further use as a film-style shot, but that would require more tweaking and additional assets to help simulate the scenario.

 

https://youtu.be/i0hkAbEYRys

https://youtu.be/tKuB0zTlAgk

Alt Link: https://vimeo.com/user132541185/review/508151699/a1f28f0f40