April Challenge - Snich - Noobie - Page 2 - Simply Maya User Community

# 16 08-04-2003 , 03:42 PM

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Thanks witchy and ereitz, I like how the tongue turned out as well, I'll start tweaking the hands and arms next, then I'll attempt to rig him, though I have no idea how yet. I'm 2 chapters from rigging in the Maya Fundamentals book! Guess I'll have to skip ahead. user added image

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 17 08-04-2003 , 09:25 PM

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C+C

Your doing really good.. thanks for the color change.. he's really looking good..

I only see to small things that I would chang. Its really such a good job its nice really have to look to find things !

1) there seems to be a litle bumpyness on the outside of the horns. would smoth it a little as it just makes him look odveusly CG..

2) your elbo is higher up in this render than your concept drawing, and I really liked the perportions on the concept.

looking really good though.
good luck on the textureing.

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# 18 09-04-2003 , 01:57 PM

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Pony: thanks for the kind words. I see what you mean about the horns, I'll probably need to split some polys to make it smoother, and the arms and hands need some major work. I rendered this just after a smooth on the original extrusions and still haven't had time to do any tweaking. Are sub-D's easier to work with or do you still end up endlessly pulling verts here and there?

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 19 09-04-2003 , 08:44 PM

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I personly, this is only my second model. but I found the subD's are a bit slow to work with. Although I had a lot of luck converting back and forth with out making the poly mesh heavyer. but rather subD's or just smothed Polys. I was allways just going back to the base mesh and tweeking there.. gess poly smoth proxy is good also. that way there are not a crap load of verts to tweek. but thin you might be doing that anyway. becouse I still end up tweeking verts quite a bit.

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# 20 14-04-2003 , 08:30 PM

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Sorry about the lack of updates. I spent a good part of the weekend doing other things, but managed to tweak his arms and one the his hands a bit. Also, I've been learning rigging, which I currently have no experience in. I'll post some more pics tonight.

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 21 14-04-2003 , 08:42 PM

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Looks cool to me Snich. user added image

Keep up the good work!

adldesigner
Caracas, Venezuela
Hell .. not gone perse, but with a certainly lower post count per day.

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# 22 15-04-2003 , 02:55 AM

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promised update

adl- thanks a lot, I appreciate all the support around here!

Well, I pulled and pulled and rotated and scaled...then I worked on my model. Got the fingers to look a bit more like fingers. Added some knobs on the elbows as well. I'll be rigging next to see if I can pose him. I suppose I should build him a hellish environment too, we'll see if I have time. Maybe this weekend. I can hear the phone call already... Mom: what did you do over Easter hon? Me: Worked on my demon from hell. user added image

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 23 20-04-2003 , 03:34 AM

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Rigging

Well as you can see by the attached, I'm attempting to rig this guy. I really don' t know much about it. I finished the chapter in the Maya Fundamentals book where they have you rig a simple poly character. I have 2 questions: should I make an IK handle for each finger so I can manipulate them? and does the whole model have to be one object to skin it properly to the skeleton? Right now the head, mouth, and eyes are seperate from the body. Thanks.

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 24 20-04-2003 , 09:24 AM

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well snich - if you look in your may fundamentals book they probably cover rigging a hand but my advice is definitely not to put ik on the fingers! It wouldn't be helpful user added image

put an ik solver from the shoulder to the wrist if you wish - this helps when a character grasps an object etc.

For the fingers I'd look up 'Set driven key'. It may seem complex at first but it's worth learning. Because there are so many joints in the hand it takes a while to animate it using key frames and rotating each individual joint. Create a locator or a control box and add an attribute called for examples sake 'Fist'. This helps you set up a slider with a minimum, a maximum and a range. Default is 0, max is say, 10. Use 'Set driven key' to pick a driver - that would be your control box or locator, and 'driven' : the joints whose movement you want to control - that being all the necessary joints in the hand necessary to form a fist.

If this seems either absurdly complex or way over your head it probably has more to do with my style of writing than with the truth. It isn't dead simple but it's also doable.

This tutorial on zoorender explains how very nicely. I think also MtMckinly has a tutorial on this site that goes over rigging and I'm sure he also covers rigging the hand.

https://www.zoorender.com/html/tutorial_handcontrol.htm

Just another link with a quick explaination.

https://www.mac3dny.org/news.phtml?view=8

Good luck. user added image

Check out the subsurfacescattering on my tongue...

<a href="https://www.reitzmachine.com">www.reitzmachine.com</a>

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# 25 20-04-2003 , 09:25 AM

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oh and you can leave the body parts seperate and skin them to specific bones.

Check out the subsurfacescattering on my tongue...

<a href="https://www.reitzmachine.com">www.reitzmachine.com</a>

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# 26 20-04-2003 , 07:20 PM

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I dont know any shit of rigging so I can´t give you comments to that but about the modeling part :
It´s really good. And I can see on the guy that you have good ideas. Your future as 3D artist will be awsome. user added image

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# 27 21-04-2003 , 05:33 AM

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I recommend Mike's rigging tutorial very highly.

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# 28 21-04-2003 , 05:53 PM

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Ereitz: Thanks for the info a lot, I read through first link you gave and that makes sense. I don't know how good I can replicate it, but I'll give it a go!
EagleKing: Thanks so much, this is actually the first 'character' model I've ever attempted thats not part of a tutorial, so I appreciate the comments a lot. user added image

Witchy: I've been to Mike's site a few times and have looked at some of his free tuts there, I'll check out the rigging one as well. He is quite good at this stuff and hopefully I can be too someday, with much practice.

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 29 23-04-2003 , 02:11 PM

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Well, I spent a couple hours at it last night after class and got a set driven key done for one of the hands. This is for the hand position change during a walk cycle. It needs a little tweaking, but overall it looks okay. I have a couple questions, of course. 1) Is there any way I can copy and paste all this to the other hand or am I stuck doing it all over? 2) I used a smooth bind on the body, and I notice the ribcage bulging whenever I move arm up and down. I know just a little about flexors with rigid binding, but what do you do about this with smooth binding? Thanks.

"It's supposed to be hard, if it was easy, everyone would do it."

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# 30 23-04-2003 , 02:45 PM

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the ribcage bulge is a constant problem - there are a few ways to combat it - with deformers etc. - one way is to build the arm at a 45 angle instead of straight out or to build it straight out - then move it down to 45 and tweak it and then bind it. The deformer idea is not so different from the flexor idea for the arm. this is more or less theory from me because i haven't accomplished it yet myself.

You should be able to copy and paste the animation to the other hand with no problem - if it's set driven key you can duplicate the hand group on the - 1 x axis to mirror it and the attributes should copy as well if you have inputs checked.

sorry not to be a little more specific - I'm on my way to work. This is just to point you in the right direction user added image

Check out the subsurfacescattering on my tongue...

<a href="https://www.reitzmachine.com">www.reitzmachine.com</a>

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