Week 8

Rigging (continued)

Before continuing the rig, i decided to add a little more detail to the mesh and make some final changes.

firstly i added slightly more definition to the feet by making a big toe shape. this just adds more detail without affecting the face count very much.

the next step was to add fingers which could be animated. to do this i decided to start the hands again, as it would take longer to try and fix the current hands.

the outcome is shown above. i gave each finger three points to bend, and kept the palm very simple.

the final tweak was to slim down the arms and thighs, as they were too large when i tried animating with the previous rig, and crossed over too much when the arms/legs bent.

i refined the character rig by adding more control objects, which allowed for more controlled bone movement.

i added controllers for the head and both eyes. the head controller is linked with an orientation constraint to the control object. the eye bones are linked to the head bone. the eye objects each have a control object with an orientation constraint. the controllers are linked to the head. finally the head control object is linked to the root so that it stays with the body.

constraints allow good control over rotation without affecting the position or IK chains.

i changed the rig for the arms to allow more control.

here is the new arm rig:

the purple controller is for the elbow rotation. this allows the arm to be rotated independent of the bend. is used 'pick target' to select a target for the IK chain to follow. moving the control up and down rotates the arm at the elbow.

the green controller is linked to the IK chain to move the arm, as well as being linked to the hand as a constraint, to allow rotation. this gives lots of control for different postures.

the last control is also connected to the green sphere. the sphere has a two custom parameters (circled in red) which control the fingers and thumb. i decided that moving all the fingers at once was high enough detail for this character. to create the movement the parameters were wired to the rotation values of the fingers, and the same for the thumb. this creates an easy control for the finger movements without any IK.

the last change was to add targets for the knees, using the same method as the elbows.

the rig is now complete with a lot more control than the first attempt.

Week 7

Rigging

to create the skeleton the bone tools window was used as it has all the options needed in one place. to create bones, the 'create bones' button must be pressed and then click and drag in the screen. when left click is pressed a new bone is started which is linked to the previous bone. to end a bone right click; this makes a bone nub, which can be deleted.

i started with the thigh bone and made 3 bone links; the thigh, calf and a small nub for the ankle. i put a bend in the leg at the knee to help with the IK solver which would be applied later. to make a second leg i used the mirror tool in the top toolbar.

for the foot a single bone was made parallel to the ankle.

to check that the bones orientation is correct the fins options can be turned on. i used the front fin to make sure the bones were the right way round i.e the front of the bone facing forward.

next i created the root bone which is used to control the centre of gravity and the characters waist/hips. this was just a single bone similar to the foot but slightly smaller, positioned in the centre of the character.

for the spine/body i used 3 bones travelling vertically from the root (but not linked to it), and then added one small bone for the neck and another for the head.

the shoulders are a short bone positioned just below the neck bone. i used mirror again to create a second shoulder bone. to arms were created like the legs, by dragging three bones out and then having a slight bend to help the IK.

Image above shows the eye bone, which is used to move the eye by rotating it. it is linked to the head.

after creating the skeleton, the bones needed to be linked together, using the select and link tools. the upper arm bones was linked to the shoulder, the shoulder to the top spine bone, the third spine linked to the root and both thighs to the root.

next the IK chains were added.

IK chains were used in the arms and legs.

to control the movement of the bones, control objects were linked to the chains. the chain is the child of the control object. this allows movement of the chain without selecting it directly.

Foot controllers

Moving the foot controllers moves the legs with IK motion.

The same principle is used for the arms...

...and the root

Moving the root object controls the whole body, and therefore bends the knees.

the rig works well as the controllers allow easy access to the IK chains, however the arm control is limited. my character will need more complex arm movements, so i will need to look into how to get more arm control, namely separate rotation and bending.

another improvement needed is to add fingers to the hand, but first the mesh needs to be edited itself to allow for finger animation.

Week 6

Modelling continued.

to create the characters eyes i decided to use spheres. this is a higher detail way to make the eyes but i thought it would suit the cartoon style to have large round eyes. using the front view, i placed a sphere in the first eye socket. after lining it up in all the axis the faces around the eyes needed to be tweaked to fit around the eyeball, otherwise the inside of the head would be visible through gaps. to create the second eyeball i simply duplicated it and moved it along.

Above is the completed face with eyes.

the characters hair was kept simple to not use too many polygons, as it was easy to make the basic shape using a box with multiple subdivisions. by moving the vertexes the box was shaped around the head. at the front the 'quiff' was modelled by dragging vertices upwards and to the side.

the mesh is now finished.