LAUN603, EXTENDED PRACTISE, STUDY TASK 1, MOVING ART BOARDS, 3D CHARACTER

DYNAMIC ARTBOARDS/TURNAROUNDS

As my focus has shifted heavily towards lightning and shading I will be putting my focus into creating really well rendered and lit textured models where the dynamics of the model are turned up full and a nucleus solver is int he scene creating wind, and the character will be in a moving hold, or an idle pose turning on a purpose built mini set. This will allow me to show off the skills in which I want too promote the most yet also still show a skill for rigging elements of a character moving, but primarily it will show the ability to add extremities such as fur and hair and then make them dynamic which is something of massive interest of mine at the moment and a focused area I could see myself working in.

DUE TO TIME RESTRAINTS ON RENDERING THIS IS A VERY LOW LEVEL HD 540 RENDER PASS WITH ZERO SAMPLES, NOT IDEAL BUT I HAVE DONE THIS FOR SUBMISSION AND THE VERSION THAT I AM RENDERING OUT FOR MY SHOWREEL WILL BE OF HIGH QUALITY AND ALSO THE CHARACTERS WILL ALL BE IN IDLE POSES AND MOVEMENT WILL BE A BIG FOCUS OR SHOULD I SAY MORE SPECIFICALLY MOVEMENT OF HAIR AND FEATHERS AND ALSO MOVEMENT TO SHOW HOW THE SHADERS AND TEXTURES REACT TO LIGHT.

Character Rig/Models showcase (low quality render passes) from craig potterton on Vimeo.

HERE ARE WORK IN PROGRESS TURNAROUND WHERE THE CHARACTERS HAVE A DYNAMIC QUALITY, THE RENDER TIMES ARE RELATIVELY HIGH SO THESE HAVE ALL BEEN PUT ON HOLD THE LAST WEEK OR SO AS I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH TRYING TO ANIMATE. I WILL SET THEM GOING AGAIN AFTER THE SHOW AS ALL MY TIME NOW IS GOING TO BE SET ON GETTING SOME FOOTAGE FOR AT LEAST A TRAILER OF MY FILM FOR MY SHOW! ANYWAY BELOW IS WORK IN PROGRESS RENDERS THAT HAVE BEEN CUT OFF OR ARE BEEN ALTERED DUE TO TUTOR FEEDBACK RECENTLY.

BAILY I PUT IN A GLASS BELL DOME LIKE THE OLD VICTORIAN STUFFED BIRDS

HERE IS A RENDER OF A FRAME OF THE TURNAROUND (I MADE GRASS AND FLOWERS USING XGEN AND WAS PLEASE WITH HOW THEY CAME OUT ALSO THE GLASS JAR WAS LIKE A 5 MINUTE MODEL BUILD AND TEXTURE SO MY ABILITY TO SPEED MODEL AND TEXTURE A VERY SIMPLE ASSETT LIKE A WOOD BASE AND GLASS HAVE INCREASED MASSIVELY) ALSO THE METAL NAME PLATE MADE AND TEXTURED WITHIN 10 MINS AGAIN SHOWING MY ABILITY TO MAKE SOMETHING QUICK AND REASONABLY GOOD LOOKING AND WELL TEXTURED.

AFTER FEEDBACK FROM MATT I ALTERED THE GLASS AND THE SIZING OF MY BIRD, I ALSO ADDED  A MOVING HOLD TO HIM AND REDUCED ALL OF THE MOVEMENT OF HIS BEARD ETC TO A NICE SUBTLE AMOUNT. BELOW IS A REDNER OF ONE FRAME AND BELOW THAT A PLAY BLAST OF THE SCENE AWAITING RENDER

NEXT I MADE ANOTHER LITTLE BASE WITH GRASS AND FLOWERS AND A TREE AND THIS TIME ADDED BACKGROUND AND LIGHTING IN A WAY THAT I COULD PUT THEM INTO RENDER PASSES SO I COULD DO A VFX BREAKDOWN OF THEM FOR MY SHOWREEL. HERE IT IS SO FAR, IT ONLY HAS ABOUT 40 FRAMES LEFT TO RENDER.

AGAIN I TOOK ON MATTS ADVICE HERE AND ADDED A MOVING HOLD TO THE CHARACTER AS WITH A LITTLE NOSE TWITCHING AND SUBTLE FEET WOBBLE AND SLIGHT SWAY OF THE RIG BACK AND FORTH. SUBTLE WIND MAKES THE FLOWERS AND GRASS MOVE. AND THE LIGHTING BUILDS IN LAYERS TO THE FINAL RESULT.

(for the record when I see how nice the character moves here in a scene and with a nice render on it really does drive me to get this film done or more importantly get focused parts of it like this ready and done for my showreel as I personally think it could look beautiful and will add weight to my employability with creature or character creation)
DYNAMIC - TURNTABLE - IDLE (INCOMPLETE) from craig potterton on Vimeo.

HERE IS A CLIP OF MY SLOW CAM FLY INTO THE COTTAGE, BASICALLY THE START OF MY FILM (I HAD TO RENDER THIS OUT AT HD 540 AND AGAIN POOR SAMPLE RATE JUST SO I COULD SHOW IT ON MY BLOG HERE, GOING FORWARD THIS WILL JOIN MY BUILDING RENDER QUE AND BE OUTPUTTED AT HIGH QUALITY.

LAUN603, EXTENDED PRACTISE, STUDY TASK 1, 3D CHARACTER MODELS, FINAL ART BOARDS

ART BOARDS OF EACH FINISHED CHARACTER 

Here I have put some high quality well lit renders together in art boards to show off my 
final models in production quality

Magda

Silas

Puddin

Annie

Bailey

 Norman

Jack

LAUN603, EXTENDED PRACTISE, STUDY TASK 1, DYNAMICS TESTING, RIG MOTION TESTING

HERE IS  A SELECTION OF MY PLAYBLAST 

TESTING OF HAIR AND CLOTH DYNAMICS AND ALSO TESTING MY RIGS IN MOTION

(Just a quick note this section of my build has been the most testing and complex process for me and so the results are something that I am extremely happy with even though not perfect I still feel I have pushed my boundaries of maya knowledge to a much higher level with these processes)


PUDDIN

For my dog model I chose to use the opportunity for dynamics testing to make loop de loop submissions, I feel this is a great way to test my rigs and also produce so little animations to up my online presence in the 3D community.

BELOW A PLAY BLAST SHOWING DYNAMIC CURVES AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ATTRACTION OF THE HAIRS TO THEM.

HERE IS A PLAY BLAST OF THE ABOVE MODEL TESTED WITH SOME ANIMATION ON IT.

MOUSE 

This is really subtle so I left the curves on to show the movement in the blast,  a mouse hair is rather stiff but as I have a long bushy beard face area I wanted some subtle movements, also I rigged a nose twitch and so wanted the hairs around the snout to move a little as it twitched

BIRDS

My biggest challenge to date with dynamics is the complexity of these birds, firstly I need to retain stiffness of feathers but I have to create dynamic movement within them and on the ends of them to create fluidity in their movement, but more importantly I have studied endless footage of birds flying, and also reviewed animated films like Rio from dreamworks to work out the movements of each description of hair. For the record each section of the bird is in its own xgen description so I have categories for main wing feather, smaller upper wing feather, tail, face, chin, neck etc etc this gave me full control of the dynamic properties of each section of the bird.

ANNIES PONYTAIL

WONG TESTS BELOW INGORE ANIMATION JOLTYNESS AS THIS  IS INTENTIONAL AS I WANTED TO  PUT AS MUCH STRAIN AS I COULD ON MY DYNAMIC CURVES TO MAKE SURE I COULD SEE THE FULL  REACTION OF EACH CURVE AND HOW IT ATTRACTED THE SURROUNDING MESH SPLINES, ABIT LIKE PAINTING SKIN WEIGHTS WHEN TESTING DYNAMICS IT IS ALWAYS BEST TO PUT EXTREME MOVES ONTO YOUR RIG TO REALLY SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING.

ANIIES WING UPPER

ANNIES WINGS FULL FLIGHT




SUBTLE BANGS MOVEMENT, HARD OT ACHIEVE DUE TO GETTING THE HAIRS TO STAY ATTRACTED TO THE INITIAL CURVE YET SSTILL HAVE ENOUGH MOVEMENT TO LOOK STIFF HAIR LIKE.

BAILEY

All these hair tests are way more complicated than they look as the feathers around the rig have vastly different dynamic attributes in the way they dampen, or the way they attract to the curve or the magnitude of the attraction or the motion drag etc etc basically each set up of dynamics is days worth of work getting them to all behave as they should and in the correct subtle manner.
BAILEY BEAK AND UPPER HEAD

BAILEY FULL BODY WINGS AND TAIL

TRYING SOME MOVING ART BOARD STYLES HERE TO TRY AND MAKE SOME MORE INTERESTING STUFF FOR MY SHOWREEL, SHOW THE CONCEPT TO DESIGN PHASE IN MY WORK.

(GRANTED MATT SAID THIS ONE WAS SHIT AND GAVE ME LOTS OT CHANGE ON IT WHICH I HAVE TAKEN ON BOARD AND AM WORKING ON AS WE SPEAK BUT STILL FEEL IT IS PRUDENT
 TO SHOW MY MISTAKES)

LAUN603, EXTENDED PRACTISE, STUDY TASK 1, XGEN TECHNIQUES, RIGGING TECHNIQUES

XGEN TECHNIQUES APPLIED TO MY MODELS

 FOR FEATHERS AND HAIR

Quick process breakdown without much detail here...

Make feather mesh

  Assign xgen description and groom splines flat to it colliding with the mesh, then make the original poly mesh none visible or an intermediate object.

 Make a linear wire, generate guides, make curves dynamic.

Too big and complex process to explain here and probably not of interest to many but anyone wanting to make wings or feathers hit me up as Id love to explain the process its
really quite interesting.

RIGGING TECHNIQUES APPLIED TO MY MODELS

LAUN603, EXTENDED PRACTISE, STUDY TASK 1, TITLES, CREDITS

TITLES/CREDITS

This is a relatively short blog which will basically track my idea generation for my titles for my film and my credits, I feel the need for a production blog for this as through research and personal knowledge from watching endless animation and films I feel the correct look and feel of the art to start and promote the film is essential in setting the mood and theme for the film, that been said the credits again can add an extra touch of 

professionalism to round of a viewing experience. 

First titles I created for one of my first presentations

First page of my artbook

(I kept to my concept from my first title sheet, I just put a lot more effort into it by hand drawing and painting the sign in PS, perspective warping my line art and also colour correcting the photo and blending everything together) 

My inspiration is really the likes of the Royston Vasey sign in League of Gentlemen as it is a dark comedy and has the look and feel of the kind of film I am trying to create, I also looked at endless signage from around yorkshire to keep it authentic.

LAUN603, EXTENDED PRACTISE, STUDY TASK 1, CHARACTER DESIGN, MODEL SHEETS

FINAL CHARACTER DESIGNS 

AND 

MODEL SHEETS

As I want continuity with my characters and them all to sit together well I am uploading model sheets and final designs in a rougher format until I have completed them all, and then I will clean them all up linework color etc. This way of working allows me to make adjustments to a character when sat next to another finished one without feeling I have wasted my time with super neat lines and colouring and then having to change them. 

(Initially it is worth noting this is a very hard task and taking a long long time as concept art is one thing but creating perfect orthographic views for modelling in 3D with really does take some thinking about, and mistakes now mean a lot of pain in maya later so I am putting extra time allocation into this process)

BAILEY FIRST DRAFT FINAL MODEL SHEETS

MAGDA FIRST DRAFT MODEL SHEETS

PUDDIN MODEL SHEETS FIRST DRAFT

NORMAN MODEL SHEET FIRST DRAFT

JACK MODEL SHEET FIRST DRAFT

ANNIE FIRST DRAFT MODEL SHEETS

CLEANED UP COLOR MODEL SHEETS

After receiving feedback on my designs I took them to the next stage with a quick clean up and added some colour and shading and received further feedback. I will now take them to the stage after these where I create proper 3D model sheets which indicate core primitive structures etc
allowances for hair/feather creation etc.

FINAL MODEL SHEETS FOR MAYA TRANSLATION
These final sheets I have taken inspiration from researching lots of Pixar and Dreamworks artwork and processes when it comes to the kind of sheets that get passed top the 3D character modellers. I have condensed them onto one sheet each but for my own use I also have each sized and proportioned orthographic views on their own pngs 
for use in my modelling process.