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effstops 83 posts
Alrighty! I'm definitely going to try my best on this. I've done very little animation and definitely have never attempted a humanoid character so this will be extremely challenging.
I'm unsure of what software to do this in. Blender or Maya? I'm very comfortable with Blender but most of the rigs out there don't seem all that great. Maya, I know, has some great free rigs, but I really don't think I'm ready to attempt this in Maya - I still learning the basics.
So I guess it's gonna be Blender! I think I've got a pretty cool idea for this challenge but I don't really know if I can pull it off...
Good luck to all competitors!
--Colin
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hype 2,964 posts
dude, i am VERY psyched to see some blender action! if there's no good downloadable rigs for blender out there yet, maybe you can make the first good one!
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mechis 520 posts
Hey effstops-- did you see you got a mention in Hype's new video tute? heh... your site is great!
~Mechis
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MikeWilson 638 posts
Yea man, your site is fantastic, I'm a total fan now!!!
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effstops 83 posts
Haha, thanks guys.
mechis - Glad you like my site, good sir. And no! I didn't see that thread! That's awesome.
So, thanks for the reference hype! Cloning is great fun.
I'm still looking for a suitable rig in Blender. I know one must exist; the tools exist in Blender to create something really sophisticated. I definitely can't make one, though. I wouldn't even know where to begin...
Maybe I'll find some tutorials. At the moment I'll continue looking for a pre-made character.
--Colin
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hype 2,964 posts
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MikeWilson 638 posts
I tried Blender, back when I started 3d... not a good idea, I just didn't get it.
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hype 2,964 posts
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
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effstops 83 posts
Haha, thanks so much guys! Heh, but don't get your hopes up! I'm actually kinda surprised by your enthusiasm, cause it seems everywhere I go people sort of dismiss Blender as an inferior 3D app. I'm told repeatedly that if I ever want to get into visual effects or animation that I've got to learn Maya. (Which I'm struggling to do.) But yeah, Blender's the only 3D package I've used up till now and I like it a lot. Although finding good tutorials and documentation can be very difficult.
SO. About this challenge:
Having not found a character that will work for my little idea, I've decided to make my own character. Which means I won't even get to the animation for at least a week or two, if I'm lucky. I barely know how to set up an IK rig, and I don't work very fast.
Anyway, here are some sketches for this boy I want to model.
I dunno. Do the front and side views look like the same guy?
--Colin
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Cameron 2,374 posts
yep, except for the collar
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hype 2,964 posts
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flashmasterfong 238 posts
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hype 2,964 posts
ok, i see it now. looks good to me.
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effstops 83 posts
Holy moly. I just worked all day on this guy's head. I've never really modeled a human head and generally I haven't done much modeling. So this was really difficult. I've never even thought about edgeloops until now...
And the wires:
Any crits? Suggestions? Comments?
Generally I think this challenge is going to test my patience; just modeling the head of this guy was really frustrating. I've got a lot more to do! I've gotta build the rest of his body, set up the facial keys, rig him, and model and texture the environment before I can actually start animating. I'm starting to realize how little I've done in 3D - I'm getting a little overwhelmed at all this stuff I need to do and don't really know how.
One step at a time, I guess. Next up - modeling the inside of the mouth, and then onto the body.
--Colin
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hype 2,964 posts
dude, that's the best human model i've ever seen that was somebody's first human modelling! awesome work!
and i'll bet i know less than you about this stuff!
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JayG 1,164 posts
Sheesh for your first head model it's pretty damn awesome. I would suggest looking into the size of his ears though, the proportion is off a little. Other then that, rad stuff. Makes me want to try Blender.
How many polys?
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MikeWilson 638 posts
Yea man, mine was terribleee
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effstops 83 posts
Haha, thanks so much!! Okay, I lied about this being my first head model. I've attempted a head at least three times in the past, but I never got very far:
...you can see what I mean.
That was my first attempt at modeling a head. This is my first complete head, and to be honest I'm kinda surprised it came out so well. I've done a lot of drawing recently and I think that's helped a lot.
JayG- Thanks a bunch, I'll fool with the ears. Right now it's at 465 polys. Is that good? Too much?
Anyway, I really really appreciate the encouragement! I'm about to start the body.
--Colin
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quinn paynter 356 posts
Wow nice job man. 465 poly for a head is really good man. Im not sure how much that goes up when you smooth but it looks great so far. The only crit I would say is the ears too. But like you said thats you first complete head so two thumbs up from me. Your doin GREAT!!!
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
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Global 1,589 posts
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effstops 83 posts
Thanks so much guys!
Okay, I've been working on the body and hands, but I've revisited the head a little bit. I worked on the ears, so now they're a little bit more accurate and don't seem to be as pasted on. But the edge loops are kinda screwy in that area and it has a few tris in there. Since it won't be deforming much, do I need to worry about the topology of the ear?
I added two edge loops on the forehead, following Global's advice, and I also added one near the bridge of the nose to separate two poles that I had side-by-side, which I thought probably wasn't a good idea.
Onto the body!
I don't think I'm really doing it right, but I realized something. I want this guy to wear clothes. I have no idea how that's going to work. None.
How do you do clothes? Do you model the whole body underneath it and then add clothes as separate objects, linked to the same skeleton? or should I just start modeling clothes now? And do you model clothes differently from the body? I uh... I haven't thought this through.
--Colin
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quinn paynter 356 posts
Very nice man. One thing you might wanna add is more verts to folding points that will be animated like the elbow and shoulders. Well at least thats what i do. But nice dude ^__^ Im liking it.
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MikeWilson 638 posts
Most people make the clothing as part of the body, otherwise when you rig and skin it, there won't be an interpenetration problems.
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effstops 83 posts
Hmm... interesting. Does that mean I shouldn' t even bother with the underlying form and only model the clothes? Or, should I include the clothing within the same mesh?
Here's where the hands stand at the moment:
--Colin
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Jake 212 posts
Looks very nice!
The Joan of Arc Tutorial has clothing too, perhaps it helps
It's for max though, but it should all translate easily to another app.
http://67.15.36.49/ffa/tutorials/max/jo ... anmenu.asp
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effstops 83 posts
Thanks Jake! That's an absolutely awesome tutorial - I hadn't seen that before and it's gonna be a great help.
--Colin
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hype 2,964 posts
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effstops 83 posts
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MikeWilson 638 posts
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
I think everyone's pretty much answered the clothes question - I'd definalty model the clothes and then rig them into the character later on - same as Joan of Arc.
I'd also recommend - as Quinn did - adding more edges around the elbow, shoulder, wrist etc - anyware that folds like that.
Great work so far man!! Keep it up!
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effstops 83 posts
Thanks for the comments, guys! I'm sure your suggestions are gonna save me a lot of trouble later on.
I'm about finished with the body, I think. I added some loops around the elbow and shoulder (gotta add some more around the knees, I think). Here's what I've got at the moment:
(click for bigger images)
Any crits or suggestions?
Also, I have a question about the hands - do you think the hands are detailed/dense enough for animation? (There are screenshots a few posts back.)
Thanks much!
--Colin
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Heya Colin - The model's looking great! Id recommend you add a few edge loops around the knees, I generally follow Steven Stahlberg's Body Topology (he's a maya god!), so they can deform better when bending, here's and example;
Other than that, excellent job!
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quinn paynter 356 posts
haha awesome work man, your going hard out seeing as though this is due end of December and you have chirstmas to worry about too
I dont think you need a belly button either unless you plan to make him take off his shirt. Now that would be a problem with cloth simulators >__< Anyways looking good man, keep up the nice work ^__^
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effstops 83 posts
Hah, yeah quinn- there's a good chance I won't finish... but I know I'm learning a lot, and that's the important thing.
Iest, yeah, Stahlberg is amazing. That's one of the images I've been looking at for guidance - mainly for the torso. I've also tried to follow his foot tutorial for the feet... Anyway, the knees are looking better now and I'm trying to take a stab at the rigging.
I really don't know what I'm doing. I've heard a bit about this reverse foot lock setup but I have no idea how to set that up...
--Colin
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effstops 83 posts
Okay, fellers! Big update!
The main reason I haven't been posting my progress is because I'm continually, constantly, consistently running into some
extremely frustrating
software-related problems with rigging and the creation of vertex keys. To be honest, I'm not sure if these problems were because of Blender or because of me. But it certainly seemed that things that should be working just weren't.
But as far as I can tell, all of my issues have now been resolved, and I now have a completely working, albeit still naked, boy model!
I'm kinda proud of myself, actually.
Here's a quick screencap of my model, rig, and vertex keys.
Almost 100% of that rig was copied from either tutorials or other blender rigs I'm trying to learn from. That being the case, it took me way too long to put together. Even with guides I spent hours and hours setting up the bones and constraints and weights and such...
It's not actually done... I gotta fix some deformation problems and make drivers for the face shapes, but he's coming along. I won't have too much time between now and the deadline but I'll definitely try to speed up my progress and get to animation! GAH!
...haven't even started to animate. Oh well. I still want to clothe and texture this guy but maybe I'll do the animation first.
--Colin
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hype 2,964 posts
awesome work, Colin!
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Aden 622 posts
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flashmasterfong 238 posts
Yeah, that rigg is very nicely done.
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effstops 83 posts
Thanks so much, you guys! The rig is actually not as great as it looks in that screencap. I didn't move the foot controls or the arms. They're a little weird...
Anyhow, today I worked on creating drivers for this guy's face shape keys. Having shape drivers is a fairly new feature for Blender and so the whole system is a bit rudimentary. There's a script out there that's supposed to automate all this, creating driver controls for you, but for some reason it wouldn't work on my system! Yet another frustration. So, I did it myself. Took about 5 hours. Overall I'm pretty pleased, but some of the shapes don't blend very well, though, especially the smile and the open shapes, which are probably the most important pair. Hopefully this guy won't have to be doing too much mouth-open smiling. I think he's more the grinning type.
Whewph!! Onto the eye controls, I guess.
--Colin
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
Hey hey...looking superb!!!
Great to see that you're continuing on with this!
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zachm 1,230 posts
wow man, the fact that you did that using blender is impressive all by itself to me!
-Z
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hype 2,964 posts
great work, colin! have you seen some of the upcoming features in the next Blender release? sounds pretty cool, sound like incorporating a little bit of Zbrush sculpting ability into it.
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mttjss 7 posts
nice stuff Colin.
my only critique which I am guilty of alot is the blendshapes - those could be pushed a little more to get some extreme shapes, but then you hae to watch because the faces can do some uninteresting shapes as well.
like it though - looking forward to seeing the animation.
Matt -
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effstops 83 posts
Thanks a lot! I'm realizing that even with this awesome extension I probably won't be able to finish this. I mean, I don't know what I was thinking, creating a whole character for an animation challenge. On monday I'm going to Miami for a week, and unfortunately I won't be able to work on this there. And then I'm going straight to school, and I'll have a lot of make-up work to do... Bah!
hype- Yeah, the next release looks awesome! I'm now running a release candidate, just because it allows me to restrict selection of objects. Meaning, some stuff can now be unclickable, which I'm using now for my driver objects.
I haven't had time to play with all the cool stuff though!
Matt- thanks for pointing that out- I definitely agree. I restricted the possible motion a lot in my driver setup. I'm going to revisit those settings because I think they could all be pushed more.
Soo, guys, I think I'm almost done rigging!! All I need to do now is finish the inner mouth/teeth shapes and I'll be set!
Here's my eye setup:
I don't know what to do next. Clothes? Or texturing? Or should I just start animating? (I mean, that way I might actually have something to submit...)
--Colin
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hype 2,964 posts
wow, those are some SWEET eye controls! you outta sell this rig when you're done - the Blender community would probably freak!
great work!
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effstops 83 posts
Hah, thanks hype. I was actually thinking about hosting the rig for free once I'm done. Normally, I wouldn't want just give away something I've worked long and hard on, but so often in the Blender community, that's exactly what happens. I don't know, people like to share and I'm starting to feel like I should, too.
Anyway, I'm here to formally announce that I will not make the deadline for this competition. "Why not, Colin?", you ask. Well, it's complicated, but since you asked: tomorrow morning I'm leaving my computer behind and going to Miami for a week (I'm a finalist for this national arts contest!), and from there I'm going straight to school, having missed my first 6 classes. I'll have a lot of work to do to catch up, and I'll still be without a computer for a while.
So really there's no way I'm gonna finish, even though I've been working pretty hard the last few days. When the appropriate time comes, could this thread be moved to "The Factory"? I definitely still wanna finish this project. I've learned a whole lot so far and I'm anxious to take this model all the way through animation.
Thanks so much for your support, everyone! See ya!
--Colin
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quinn paynter 356 posts
Very Impressive!!!
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Neejoh 126 posts
Haha, lol at the last part where you cross the eyes
Controls look great, keep it up!
