Animation Projects

I have been working on modeling, rigging, texturing, and animating a character in low-res/low polygons. I have decided to create a guy with a hood and cargo pants. I have based my character off of a super soldier, assassin, and being able to do stunts like parkour/free running, which all these are things that interest me. I have also been helping other members/ groups in my class come up with ideas and give suggestions to their story lines. The goal I have in mind is to have the character rigged and animated to be running and doing a few stunts, a few example videos that inspired me and gave me the idea is down below. Also it is my hope to have my final rendered animation to look like the video below.

I started with modeling the character in zbrush on my surface tablet that offers pressure sensitivity. I started with a default model that zbrush provided and made significant changes to facial features, I mainly used it as a base model. I drew a layout of what I wanted my character to look like on paper before moving over to zbrush. I then modeled the character and all of the clothing in low-res, this provides it with as little amount of polygons as possible. This way I was able to keep the details without the excessive poly count this will make animating go faster and not be bogged down.

The surface tablet that I have been working on.

Next I exported all the items separately into maya (character, shirt, pants, belt, etc...). I then went on to add all the different parts on separate layers in maya, this let me keep all items separate so they wouldn't be messed up during the rigging phase. Before I was able to start rigging the model I needed to do some changes to the arms in order for Humanik to work properly (the model needed to be in a perfect T pose), to fix the problem I combined the shirt and character together and moved the arms into a T pose. I then separated the shirt from character and hide the layer, so I could focus on the character. Now I am ready to start rigging.

With the help of lynda.com I was able to learn how to use Humanik rigging system in maya. This type of rigging system in maya is wonderful to use (if done correctly) it makes animating more realistic and easier to do (it does most of the work for you). I started with opening Humanik and creating a new skeleton, then it was just a matter of aligning all of the joints and bones into the correct places on the mesh (A trick that I used is to lock the mesh/character layer so you can use it as a reference without accidentally moving the mesh and ultimately messing it up). After that is done I locked the preferences in place and started on skinning the mesh.
This is the menu where you would find and create a Humanik rig.

Once the bones are places in the correct places, if done correctly this should be entirely green.

This is what the skeleton in maya would look like.

Now that the skeleton is put into place I added skin which required me to select the mesh (just the character, none of the clothes or extras) and the skeleton and select skin - bind skin - smooth bind this created a default skin that was quick and easy to create giving me the result I wanted in a short amount of time.
This is the menu for adding skin also includes which one I chose for this project.

I then started on creating the control rig. This is the step that I am at right now. So far all that I have done is created the control rig using Humanik (it was just like making the skeleton but it was a control rig instead) this gave Humanik its "power" or "magic". This allows Humanik to, if you moved the wrist down then Humanik would effect the rest of the joints in the body ex: if the wrist was moved down then the knees would bend and the character would lean to the side of the lower wrist. Also after Humanik is setup you can use default "skeletons/animation" in maya so that your skeleton and mesh mimics the default provided ex: a cartwheel.

This is what the control rig looks like in Humanik

The next step after rigging would be to add textures to the character/ mesh. To do this step I would export uv maps of the mesh to photoshop where I can create detailed texture maps that I would be able to add to the existing mesh in maya. After that it is just a matter of fine tuning the texture to fit correctly to the mesh. I would repeat this process for each individual piece (shirt, pants, belt, character, etc...). I have not yet begun on this step but I plan on getting it done over the summer so that I can move on to other projects and further progress the current one. Although this project is taking awhile I am hoping to add this project to my portfolio for college or to possibly get an internship (that would be awesome).

The software used for texturing the character.

My plans for the future will be to complete the control rig and have a successful character that I can animate a scene. The next steps that I have to get done include texturing and animating the character. I plan on working on it over the summer, my goal would be to have a rendered out scene/short animation before school starts again. I will try blog and keep up with my progress through blogger. I can also later on go back on to blogger and show others what work I have done in the past. I have also been providing help to other students in my class, helping them with ideas and suggestions but also helping them with difficulties and obstacles that they come across.

This project has been long and enjoyable, these are the steps that I have taken to come up with the final render.

1. Create a Drawing of environment for modeling, I created a quick sketch of what the environment would look like so I could have a visual to refer back to.

2.Begin Modeling the environment, this took some time to get it all smoothed out and looking the way I wanted it to but overall it was easy and fun, this is where most of my time was spent.

3. Created a Background for the environment, it included a sky dome and also a ocean since it is a deserted island, it was pretty simple to do but it took some time to get the water looking right.

4. Created Fluid Clouds in environment it was simple to do was able to create the clouds and set key frames for them to move and shift also added a haze so it looked more realistic.

5. Created 3d paint effects to add terrain to environment, I added grass and palm trees to make the island look a bit more realistic and give it some vegetation, I had a little trouble getting the grass to work correctly but after some searching I found out it was the UV's that I had to play with a bit to get it to work right. The paint effects ended up slowing the render time down considerably.