Animation Project
 

Hello all, ived decided to put aside all my projects and focus on one in all my spare and free time. i have chosen to start practicing animating since thats the real thing reason i started maya even though i havnt done any of it yet :p

The things which will consist in this project are modeling a medium poly character, fully rigging it up and animate little short scenes. This wont be easy at all though i hope you help and stick with me the whole way ... :)

cheers, Marlon John

Heres a start of what ived done so far, started blocking out a girl character from a free tutorial on the net i found ...

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7171/51359387pz7.png

Hey Marlon, cant really comment on the model at the mo as its still in the blocking out phase, one thing I would suggest is to plan out what your going to have her doing then you can model it to suit.

Hey Marlon,

How long have you been using Maya? :confused:

IÕll be watching your progress on this one.
:beer:

hey steve, yeah i had a rough idea of what i was going to do, though now you mentioned it i should plan out abit more ... might draw couple of story boards since they help alot...

hello jr.who ... it feels like ived been using maya along time! though its only been about little over a year off and on :p cool nice to know someones keeping an eye on me ;)

marlon

heres a bit of an update of what i was working on a little while ... btw not going to have proper feet since i just wanna mainly practice on movement in the body besides other minor things such as toes etc :p

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/4892/15369240di2.jpg

started with the hands, tried to detail them abit though someone looks wrong with it? can someone try figure it out ... gotta redo the thump what else?

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/8596/fingers1un5.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1179/fingers2dl6.jpg
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4518/fingers3bv6.jpg
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/1976/fingers4ej6.jpg

the hands aren't feminine at all, so yeah


looking good otherwise! :)

how bout some partial creases for the finger nails?

I wouldn't say "not at all", but they are a little broad. I like how it's going so far! KUTGW

Sparticus

thanks for the comments guys, yeah the hands are not really feminine i reckon because there really bulky if you look from the side view ... gotta try fix that, will do it soon.

yeah i will crease the finger nails soo it shows it off abit more :)

most of the body done just gotta work on the hands and fix some geometry on the body :)

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/8500/76037508wl9.jpg

heres a wire frame of the body in polygons ... 1200 faces atm

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/2821/59842648bm0.jpg

Hey Marlon

You might want to add some extra edge loops round the areas of deformation, knees, elbows etc so that your character deforms a bit better when rigged etc.

Have a look for some body topology if you can (have a look in the maya sectioon CGtalk theres some great examples of topology there.)

sorry that i havnt posted any updates atm ... im going threw mid year exams at college, so its pretty hard trying to do both at the same time. will slowly do some progress though,

ey steve, yeah i just realized i have to add edge loops round things which will need deformation like you mentioned :S that will be my next step with changing the topology around right after i attach the hands when im finished with them ...

thanks, Marlon John

hi,

if animating is what you really want to do, why spend so much time creating a character? Get a free one of the net or make a simple dummy. I think you'd use a simpler mesh for animation anyway. A simple character, well animated is better then something complicated but the movement isn't right.

cheers

@ farb - yeah your totally right, been spending too much time on the character trying to get it detailed abit :headbang: For some reason id rather just create one instead of getting a free one of the net ...

"A simple character, well animated is better then something complicated but the movement isn't right."

indeed it is ...

Marlon J

had a free day today, soo work up in the morning and tried to work on it ... i think im done? gotta tweak some vertices though.
Anyone reckon its ready for rigging up?

can someone comment on my horrid topology :p

Marlon J

[EDIT] was 4000 polys though reduced it to 1600 ;)

might reduce the head ...

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2922/body1of4.jpg

Marlon my friend, hold up. Start with the construction and proportions before you add any detail. It will be so much easier to get it look right later on in the game.
Start with the block-in of a head and think in head divisions of 8.

Study as much Loomis as you possibly can (google a bit and see if you can find any of his books online in pdf format).
Not the look, but the construction and insights of what he knows. Solid foundation. Now it's of course more than ok to step outside the realms of the ideal female, but the construction must be solid regardless.

As for the topology on a general note. It's never randomly placed. It's either following underlying bones and muscle groups (this is where anatomy studies are extremely helpful)
or there for better deformation / loops.
The three close splits at the knee and elbow for instance are only there for the sake of better deformations. Knees, shoulders, elbows, hips/crotch are always troublesome to get to look ok.

Now I'm not saying you need to make a hyperreal character with bizarre levels of anatomically correct details, but make a believable character. That's what animation is about. Make belief :)
I'll cheer you on while you're having fun with this project.

thanks for the feed back Alphaflyte ... you can remove the link if you want now, ill properly reply back to you when i get home :)

marlon

Yup i know i should start with proportions and work my way up, though i tend to always add detail before i have even done anything to it yet when i work with organic models...

Yeah thanks soo much for mentioning loomis, it will help me soo much when i start to use my tablet and start sketching people which will then be acurately drawings hopefully ;) thanks for the link again,

Yeah, i totally forgot about topology since thats really whats going to make my animation look good with better deformations around them areas which you have mentioned, :p

thanks again for your words, :) cheers buddy

Marlon J

heres a tiny update,

- added/fixed some loops around the neck, elbow, shoulder

anyone reckon i should add more edge loops? though i dont want to add to many since i want to keep this model, low-medium poly

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/7342/today1gj6.jpg

snapshot from the backview,

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/2544/today2dt3.jpg

The Loomis "Figure Drawing for all it's worth" is avaliable for free (Legally) on www.fineart.sk
It has another anatomy book aswell. Good work on the model so far. Is the tutorial on making low poly people out of cylinders cause i think i've seen it before.

thanks for the comment and yes it is ;) mostlikely youved seen the tut,

tweeked it abit and added some detail. I think im done, detail looks alright to me, dont want to go high-tech just basic atm ... might properly rig this character up now,

marlon

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/1039/work1nd9.jpg

Is it just me, or are the legs a tad too long? :confused:

Yeah they are abit to long or the body is abit to small :p

Heres abit of an update on the rigging, Close to animating this baby, woo!

still gotta clean up some channels on this rig, attach it to geometry and paint weights and soo forth, you know the drill ;)

Heres a quick screenshot ...

Marlon J

http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/2575/riggeduk5.jpg

Hey guys, heres a little humping action i just created in a short amount of time ... started weighting though i am going to redo it tomorrow soo it is much better ;)

www.marlonjohn.com/hump_action.avi

Marlon J

hey guys, heres what ived been working on for the past week for about, abit over 2 hours ... love to receive a comment and your thoughts on this, thanks.

www.marlonjohn.com/backflip.avi

cheers, marlon

IÕve never seen a backflip before in real life, so the only thing I can say is that it looks good.

Looks pretty good
but I think the backflip could be a bit better because usually when you jump in the air you turn faster then just before you hit the ground ;)
your character turns a bit slow, and then when he realises he's not going to make it he speeds up
(I'm not gonna try it, but I don't think I would be able to do so)

@ Jr.Who - thanks man ;)

@ Freaky-Freeky - thanks also man, haha yeah i also agree with your crit ... gonna edit the scale/timeline so it flows much better :D

any other comments people ... crit all you want :)

Marlon J

Nice going Marlon

I would say that you could do with extending the legs more before take off, that way it would add more weight to the movement.

hi
to the back flip i would say that you should try to make here more "ball" like, when you do a backflip (or any other flip ect) you must get as round as possible so the rotation goes faster (every thing should get as close the the pivot point)
but nice animation :attn:

to the hump the chest dosnt move move enough and the hip moves to much

nice work :beer: cheeers m8