#combinedassessment

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Pre-Vis. 22.10.13

Set Driven Keys.

1. Open up set driven key.  Load l_arm_ctrl into driver and select 'Close'  Load l_finger1_joint into driven and select 'Rotate z (y on ladybug)' Make sure everything is zeroed out for the first key.  Press Key. 

2. Change driver value 'close' to 10. Make sure you always change the driver first.  Change driven value 'rotate z' to -120 (about) Press Key. 

3. Open set driven key again.  Load l_arm_ctrl into driver and select 'thumb'  Load l_thumb1_joint into driven and select 'rotate x,y,z'  Have all zeroed out.  Press Key. 

4. Change thumb joint to '10' and put thumb where needed to get the rotae x,y and z values. Press Key. 

^^^ Do the same for the right side. 

Edit attribute: - Tick the boxes that allow the attribute to have minimum and maximum values. Put min at 0 and max at 10. 

Open outliner and select the fingers and thumbs and make sure all tangents are linear (straight). It is now up to the animator to put in the timing. 

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Next steps in assignment: 

- Make a control group and a don't touch group.  - Select all under global_ctrl and group again. Name this group global_buffer. Then unparent global_buffer and global_ctrl from one another. Select global_ctrl THEN global_buffer and parent constrain and scale constrain.  - Lock off all attributes that do not need to be used. 

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To Bind: Under 'skin' go: 'smooth bind options' 

Make sure to have selected.  - joint hierarchy - heat map - classic linear  - post

make sure to turn off colorize skeleton too. 

[animation-adventures]

BLOG PROGRESS. Due 18.10.2013

Over the past 4 weeks, I have been spending most of my time thinking about of different ways to approach modelling 'Nelle' within Maya, and have now, I have a near complete pre-vis model of what I want her to look like - referencing as closely as I can to the designs I created in design and visual thinking in term 3. 

Following the assessment guidelines and keeping in mind that I will have to create a more complex model at the end, I decided to start creating 'Nelle' with more divisions than I needed for the time being. That way I could easily save a number of different copies while slowly developing the character which would lead me to the final, reduced, pre-vis model of her - while also having made the more complex model on the way. 

I began the modelling process by firstly building the torso, which I did a number of times as I was testing the subdivisions, height and scale on what started as a cylinder. I decided to go with a simpler mesh to begin with and then duplicate it to create the extra 4 body divisions upward. This way I could make sure they were mathematically even, which is what I tried to keep constant throughout my entire bug model. To have the bug bend slightly I used lattice deformers - which I felt worked to my advantage because it was an easy and simple method I felt comfortable using. Once completed I realised I could have made this torso a number of different ways - some easier and quicker - but was happy with the result. 

Next thing I created was the wings - because at first I thought I wanted to have the legs and arms separate to the torso, which I ended up changing along the way. I created the shape using a sphere, deformed slightly and duplicated then combined so that I could merge the vertices accordingly - with one egg shaped oval inside the other. Off that I used the extrude tool (keeping edges together) to create the wings - which I ended up separating eventually after realising that rigging it would be just too far out of my knowledge. I felt this way worked better in the end anyway, because then I can have the littler wings underneath. I did have some issues when using the interactive split tool when making this mesh though, which I did figure out after I did a clean up. I made sure this object fitted against the torso shape snug and placed it there, deleted history, froze transformations and made it into it's separate layer. 

Creating the legs and arms proved to be quite easy - I just extruded from the main torso mesh and made just enough divisions so that I could identify the elbow, wrist, thumb and finger (mitt) joints up the top, and the knee, and boot entities down the bottom. I used the append to polygon tool to fix the mitt fingers, because if I just joined the end of the hand up by merging the vertices I would have a couple of triangles! and I wanted to stay well clear if I could. By using the append poly tool I could then simply use the tool twice OR I could use the interactive split tool. I tried the interactive split tool and sometimes it just was stubborn and wouldn’t work. I extruded the arm and leg bases to create the elbow, knees and boots for the model, which ended up being quite simple yet effective enough to keep the shapes intended (as on my design).

After creating the arms and legs I realised the arms were too short so I altered them slightly just by scaling and moving some of the divisions around. I didn't have too much trouble doing this, was just a bit fiddly. Overall, so far, I feel that my model has come along quite well for something that has been created very simply using a limited amount of tools. I found that I was also trying tools such as 'slide edge tool', 'duplicate face' and merging tools to fix up little bits here and there all over my mesh, but I was for most of the time trying to locate them using the action keys and hot boxes, which I now feel so much more comfortable using. If I could change anything and create my mesh again, I would more precisely think about what I'm modelling before hopping straight onto Maya and just giving it a go. 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Assignment Process (Modelling Whole Bug mesh) 05.10.13

Today I started creating the legs, which were done by extruding from the torso mesh - using the same method when I created the arms.  I also had to think about how I would create the boots and whether they would be a separate object. 

So what I did was, is adjust the location of some subdivision caps so the legs could be extruded more evenly, and then selected the border edge which ended up taking the shape of a square. 

I thought I could create the legs like I did the arms, so I just extruded straight off that and stopped half way down the legs to extrude again so I could have a couple extra divisions to work with to be able to complete the knees as well. Now with the feet, I had a couple of issues, which I did learn how to fix after experimenting a little bit and doing a bit of trial and error testing. 

I decided to create the feet and shoes as one object attached to the bottom of the legs at first but then I thought I could just keep extruding and scaling certain pieces to get what I wanted - which worked out quite successful. This was until when I wanted to extrude outwards to create the area where the arch of the foot and the toes would be. I wanted to create a sole for the shoe as well so it would have a realistic twist on the character but I did this the wrong way, extruding the top of the shoe and then the sole of the shoe separately when they were sharing a lot of the same vertices and edges. I wasn't thinking clearly but then after it kept deforming in '3' (smoothed mode), I realised something was clearly wrong. I decided to leave it for a night and then return to it in the morning - and when I did I realised how silly I was. 

So - because I saved up until that point and another before hand I could revert back to a couple steps earlier which made it easier than deleting certain parts and trying to fix them back to what they were and things. I remade the shoe and this time I extruded them both at the same time, and this time I didn't have any issue with then trying to move some vertices, smoothing the object and also didn't have any faces inside my object - which is what I had before. I also hardened some of the outer edges towards the toes, as well as bevelling some so the shoe kept its shape.

After I'd created the shoes I realised the bottom edge was slightly rotated, which incidently worked out quite well because that meant the legs were slightly off and that's exactly what I wanted in the first place but didn't realise how to create it. So I just evened the very bottom of the shoes slightly, and now I have a straight - very similar torso, legs, arm and head - following nearly identically the references behind. 

After completing this mesh, I've decided I'm definitely going to stick with this one, rather than having all the separate parts just combined by using joining methods. This way looks way more smooth and just has an overall continuous feel to it. 

I completed the mesh by leaving the antennas as pieces that just joined on and with the shell / back / wings I've also just left that so it sits on the back of the bug, not interferring with any topology. I don't actually know how I'm going to approach this so I've left it for the moment so I can speak with my teachers about it. 

To complete this study block for today, I've centered the pivot and snapped it down to the level of the grid so the bug stands on top. I've also rearranged my layers and have grouped all my items correctly. I've frozen the transformations and deleted all the history so I can get stuck straight into rigging and building the environment when I get back to uni this week. 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Assignment Process (Modelling torso) 04.10.13

Today I began taking apart my file and re-organizing it all. I decided to keep the old files that I wouldn't be using right this minute, because I can imagine that they'd serve some purpose later! I did this by grouping all the pieces that I no longer needed into a group called separateBody_pieces - which is kind of like my scrap work for now. I also created a layer containing all of these pieces. 

I began modelling off the torso by getting rid of the 'joining' torus' and deleting two faces of either side of the body, where my arms would be extruded from. Referencing my image placed on a plane behind it, I modelled the arms as simply as I could - creating divisions only where needed. I created a division for the elbow bulge and also adjusted the scale slightly to replicate the hand (mitt). *note this is only on one side of the body.

I used the append to polygon tool to fix the mitt fingers, because if I just joined the end of the hand up by merging the vertices I would have a couple of triangles! and I wanted to stay well clear if I could. By using the append poly tool I could then simply use the tool twice OR I could use the interactive split tool. I tried the interactive split tool and sometimes it just was stubborn and wouldn't work. I made sure that my faces were all of the same orientation and conformed all my normals and did a clean up and it was still not working properly so I put it down to being a bug in Maya, as it has happened a couple times before when trying to use it. *note - I am using Maya 2013 at home. I know I should upgrade. :\ 

Anyway, this worked out well and then it was time to move onto creating a 'thumb' and the elbow. The thumb proved to be quite easy and the interactive split tool worked when I was trying to create a couple of extra divisions so that it would look less pointy, since I created it using the extrude tool. And with the elbow I just extruded it outwards slightly to create a bulge. 

I then realised, once I'd finished the one arm that it was actually too short for the body. It would have been acceptable but my bug was supposed to be 'lanky' looking and I wanted it to be longer. I just remade the arm, and because I knew what I was doing straight away it didn't take anytime at all. :) 

After this I needed to find a way to duplicate the arm, which I didn't really know how to do because I didn't need the whole torso. I tried duplicating it separately but because it was part of the torso mesh it wouldn't let me do it. I worked around this though, and ended up duplicating the whole arm + the torso and then just deleted the torso, rotated the arm so it was correct, changed the pivot point and snapped it to the allocated open space on the body. 

These are my snap shots so far. :)  Front and back.