Sara Torres

This blog will contain all my animation projects and research whilst I am studying at NUA

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Maya Dynamics: nHair, Xgen, and Interactive Grooming

This course will introduce users to the most important basic functions and workflows found within Maya 2017 to create hair using nHair, Xgen, and interactive grooming splines. Software required: Autodesk Maya 2017.

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Weekly Summary

Week 10 – 01/04 – 07/04

 ·          Development

I spent a few days working on the gibbon animation. I managed to include rotation joints without losing the animation thanks to my well-structured rig system.

I also applied the last changes to the groom and sent it to Alastair for review.

  ·          Area for Development / Thoughts

Smooth out the animation and correct any mesh deformations.

Research more on Nhair simulations.

  I’m a little stressed right now considering university is closed during Easter, one of my friends said I could work on his computer during that time so I hope it will be able to handle hair simulations.

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Weekly Summary

Week 8 – 18/03 – 24/03

 ·          Development

I’ve started the animation of the gibbon which is going quite smoothly for now. I also got some solid animation reference.

 ·          Thoughts on the project

I haven’t progressed much with the projects. I’m still in that ditch of deconcentration which is worrying me a lot.

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I got a nice reference video showing a gibbon swinging. The quality of it is not the best but the camera angle is just right for what I need.

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Weekly Summary

Week 7 – 11/03 – 17/03

 ·          Development

 Finally finished the rig for the gibbon.

Finished the match move of the wasp’s head for the animation.

  ·          Thoughts on the project

 I’m happy with the build of the rig, but I feel like I messed up the control setting trying to make it complicated. My experimenting with the rig didn’t turn out to be a good idea, which made me spend to much time on correcting it. In the end, I was so frustrated that even though I managed to finish it I’m not very happy with the results.

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Weekly Summary

Week 6 – 04/03 – 10/03

 ·          Development

I moved onto the gibbon to rig it and animate it since I’m waiting for Nick’s look dev.

 ·          Thoughts on the project

 This week was very rough for me, I had trouble concentrating and working the same 12 hours as I did for the first 4 weeks.  People tell me I’ve burnt out and that I should watch out for those things,  but it’s not like I can control it. I wanted to spend that many hours at uni working because I was really engaged with the projects and I was enjoying myself. I think I reached the middle of my projects where I’m not sure what the next step I should take.

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A test of the gibbon rig to see where the automatic skin deformations are not working. I’m gonna fix most of them but leave the chest as it is as I can fix it after animating the gibbon and I’m probably gonna have to apply more changes to the rig as I don’t really need so many controls on the hands.

So far the thing I’m most happy about is the possession of the joints on the shoulder blades they really help with the deformation of the shoulders and the general movement of the arms.

For some reason, I decided to make a reverse chain on the hands connected to the IK that can switch to an FK as well. On one hand the reverse chain would help me control the hand and make it more steady while the gibbon is swinging but on the other hand, it’s so extra that I just complicated everything for my self in the end.  I had to get rid of it and just work with an IK and normal rotation controls on the wrists.

The deformation on the wrists is a little weird as well but I can’t tell how it will work yet. I’m gonna wait with them for the animation as well to see what is it that I need to fix.

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Gibbon Swinging In Super Slow Motion

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Weekly Summary

Week 4 – 18/02 – 24/02

 ·          Development

This week I’ve continued modeling Haseya’s braids until I was finally able to work on the wasp.

The rig has been finished and I have started making the groom for the wasp’s hair.

 ·          Strength

I believe I found a way to control the hair of the braids better, but for now, I will put this project aside as I need to refresh my head with a different project.

The rig that I made for the wasp although it’s very simple it’s also easy to use and that will allow us to make the animations faster considering they are not that complicated.

Also, I managed to finish the  rig quite quickly which gave me some time during the week to start the wasp’s  groom

 ·          Thoughts on the project

The mesh of the wasp has been given to me with delay due to constant mesh changes and the fact that Rob who specializes in modeling doesn’t know how to retopologize. That slowed down our Collaboration  Project pipeline.

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Hair test part 7

This is "Hair test part 7" by Sara Torres on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Hair test part 6

This is "Hair test part 6" by Sara Torres on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Hair test part 5

This is "Hair test part 5" by Sara Torres on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Weekly Summary

Week 3 – 11/02 – 17/02

 ·          Development

 This week I’ve been working on the braids for Haseya’s turntable as well as discussing with the guys from  VFX any changes we need for the low topo mesh of the wasp.

I’ve started creating the base of the rig but can’t do much for now as they keep changing the topology and the symmetry is not right either.

 ·          Strength

Something that gives me a  lot of confidence about this project is that I’m recording my process of grooming. I can use that for my Art Station profile, to show the steps I undertook to get the results.

 ·          Thoughts on the project

 The process of making hairstyles and braids, in particular, seems to be very complicated, to the point that is making me tired of working on the same project over and over.

The hair is not following the splines properly  – I can probably gain more control with a higher density for the guides and some clumps and control maps.