Final Conclusion

The project is finally finished and i am in some ways relieved. It has been a long 9 weeks of intense concentration and patience and in the end i did learn a hell of a lot.

In the beginning i said that i wanted to do the whole process of conceptualization, modelling, texturing, rigging and then finally animating it for one single character.

The modelling stage was thoroughly enjoyable and it is an area that i am definately interested in going into. I followed some tutorials which i got off the web and that was a major part in me getting through the first hurdles of modelling and from there on i never looked back.

The UV mapping was a major headache for me as i struggled to learn it. The main problem was choosing the right form of mapping for my model and i never really decided whether i wanted to planar map it or automaticallly map it first. In the end i chose to automatically map it and then texture it. I feel as though i haven't fully learned how to UV map and that is something i will work on and rectify over the holidays.

UV mapping is still an area that appeals to me and i am gonna work on it and improve my skills so it becomes second nature to me as with anything in maya.

Rigging was interesting and i had mixed feelings about it but learnt alot. I found out that when i was rigging, my model should have have been modelled seperately and not as a one entity. It's something that i will take into account and also that was one of the reasons why UV mapping was difficult for me as i combined the hold mesh and i couldn't take it apart for mapping.

Putting in the skeletons was pretty easy, especially if you know your human anatomy. The paint weighting stage of the model was frustrating as the amount of time it took to paint it and get it right was a long process. I also found out while paint weighting that there were still problems with the geometry of the model and that is something that i will work on when i model in future.

Animating the character was fun but i didn't really spend a lot of time on it because of the other areas i had to work on. Using the Richard Williams Animator's Survival Kit Book was a really good point of refrence and it teaches you the basics of animation and its principles. A really good book and one that should be with everyone for life. Animation is an area that i will also look to improve upon as well as the other areas that i mentioned.

Overall i think i have learnt and improved in most of the areas that i have explored for this project. I will continue to learn and improve and take what i have learnt so far and build on it.

IK handles placed and Walk Animated

i have placed the IK handles on the model and that was pretty much very easy to do. I didn't fully rig the model because the IK handles that i have placed should give me a competent moving rig and animation on the model.

For the walk animation, i used the Richard Williams Animator's Survival Kit book as refence for my animation. In the book, there is a page where it shows you how to do a 2D walk cycle and i basically applied the same principles on the 3D character model.

This is the first test that i did with the IK handles and the walk animation. I hid the mesh so i can see what the animation looks like on its own with the rig and handles.

The animation is okay but could definately be better.

Here is the walk animation cycle with the mesh and it looks again average but its gonna have to do for now.

So this is the final animation rendered and surrounded by textured backgrounds.

Textured Model

Ok so i have textured the model using simple colours as i intended and i think its come out pretty decent.

So as you can see here is the model and its been textured pretty much all the way.

I did consider putting a logo on his T-Shirt, like a london zoo logo with some creature designs but i just ran out of time.

Rigging & Paint Weighting

Haven't posted in a while so here's what i have done so far.

I decided to start rigging the character first rather then texture it as i wanted to get the more time consuming rigging out of the way.

I pretty much started putting the skeleton joints in the mesh from scratch and i was following a specific tutorial in placing and position the joints in the correct way. Its all based on the human anatomy and if you know where your joints are in your body then you just apply the same principles into the model.

Once i have finished putting the joints in the model i then binded it together as one entity. The process is called skin bind. After that was done i then started on the paint weighting of the model.

Paint weighting is important as it adds weight to the model, this will help to keep the mesh in place. So when your animating, the mesh will stay intact and will not go all over the place.

When your paint weighting, you basically paint on to the model like a brush. The white area is where the weight is applied and the black area in the model is where there is no weight applied.

I have come across problems during paint weighting. One of them was that my macbook couldn't handle the paint weighting process and kept quitting. So i decided to use a PC and also upgraded from using Maya 8.5 to Maya 2010. I did purely because it was the only version of maya that was on the PC at Ravensbourne.

So as i expected, paint weighting was time consuming as with anything in Maya. Once paint weighting was done at around 70%, my next stage was to start putting in the IK handles which will help to animate the character. The reason why i stopped at half way at paint weighting was because putting in the IK handle and animating it revealed more anamoly on the mesh of the model. So thats why im gonna paint weight it more when i put in the IK handles on the model.

Modelling the Character

Before i started my modelling i looked at some tutorials to learn the basics of modelling a character again and i found this great tutorial from the "Simply Maya" website. The tutorial demonstrates how to model in low poly and smooth it afterwards in maya. Alternatively it can be taken into Zbrush and smoothed and refined there, it can even be textured in Zbrush which i am considering.

But at this point i just want to start modelling the character first in Maya and keeping the poly count as low as possible.

So as you can see in the image on the left, i have imported my image refrence of the character in maya as an image plane.

I started modelling the head using nurbs as it is more easier to manipulate and model. The neck was created seperately using a nurbs cylinder and both of the head and the neck were connected using an operation called booleans. Afterwards i just converted the head and the neck from nurbs into polygons.

The next stage here, i am modelling out the body and arm using a polygon cube and attaching it to the head. This process involves quite a lot of extruding and moving the geometry around using vertices.

The shorts are done seperately here. I used a polygon cylinder for the basic shape of the shorts. Just moving the geometry and vertices around helps get it into the shape that i want. I also had to delete some faces as i am only modelling half the model. This is because afterwards i will duplicate that half model and mirror it onto the other side. This saves time and helps to keep the model in line and accurate.


So the model is coming along nicely now and you can see that the hand and feet are now fully modelled and connected to the rest of the body. The feet and hand had to be modelled seperately but they were not extruded from the body it self.

The hand and feet were basically combined with the body and then merged with the vertices afterwards.

As i am modelling along the way i sometimes mirror the geometry to see how the other side will look. I do this so if any changes need to be made i can do it pretty much at that stage rather then going back after it is fully modelled which could cause a headache.

I'm nearly finished now. The eyes were created by simply using polygon spheres and placed in line with the eye socket. The socket itself was created by deleting some faces and using the split polygon tool to create the shape of an eye. I had to move some vertices around and merge them to get the shape right. The ears were the same process and pretty much more extruding. I had to also extrude and refine the nose as well as the mouth. All that is left now is the hair.

Here is a quick picture of what the model looks like when it is not selected or highlighted.

Ok the hair is done now. This was pretty easy as i just extruded from the head itself so nothing too complicated there.

At this point the model has been duplicated and mirrored on the other side. I combined and merged the vertices to complete the model and make it as one. A few little adjustments have been made but other then that i am really happy. Its pretty close to the original concept and i did change a few little things here and there but overall its turned out better then i expected.

So the modelling is over and i have to say i really enjoyed it. I didn't have any major problems and the tutorials that i have followed were really helpful in acheiving my end results. The whole process of modelling took about a week and a half. I could have produced the model by less then a week but i was slacking a bit and was being distracted by other projects, but hey i'll put my hands up and say no excuses. There were moments were i did get stuck like doing the eye socket and maybe a bit of the hand, but because my concept of the model was simple these hurdles were easily solvable.

Ok i guess the next process is either rigging or texturing, i haven't decided yet but it could be one of those. I'll let you know on the next post.

Final Character design

This is my final character design of Willie Billiams and i am pretty happy with it. As you can see the concept has a front and side view of the character. I will use this as my image refrence when i start modelling it in Maya.

The image below is just a colour version of the character. I wanted to keep the clothing simple and have that summer feel to it as the brief states that the character is going to be used for a London Zoo animated Advertisement. I did experiment with a few colours for the clothing but in the end i wanted to stick with bright colours as i wanted it to represent his hyperactive personality and the essence of him being a kid.

Lastly the image below is me trying to experiment with facial expressions for my character.

If i do decide to animate the face then i will probably use a process called Blend Shapes which needs to be done in Maya. Its a thought for now, but if everything goes as planned and on time then i would like to do some facial animation.

Ok thats it for now. I will now start modelling the character in the 3D application sofware Maya and hopefully be posting the images of how it is looking as soon as i can.

Character Concepts

Ok so i have been busy producing the concepts for my character and i have finally found the time to upload the images of what i have been doing up in the blog.

These initial sketches were drawn at an early stage while i was trying to figure out how i wanted my character to look. I really tried experimenting with the appearance of the character and sketching out possible design look as alternatives. Eventually i narrowed down my choices and chose the one i wanted to go ahead with as the final design. Above in the 2nd picture you will notice that i highlighted the character that i chose and made a little comment.

The reason why i chose this character was because it had the best overall child quality look to it. I really wanted to stay close to what the brief had described of the character and that was my focal point when i was drawing the character concepts. The rest of the characters i drew were fine but it didn't really look right, some were too simple and some were a bit exaggerated and over the top. The character i chose to go ahead with, had a bit of both and the right balance of look.

As you can see above, i took my final character design and started to produce more concepts to refine it and add character poses which i could potentially use when i animate my character.

Very simple and quick pose sketches that i did which i learnt from my life drawing experiances and looking at refrences in the internet.