Senior Thesis II: Rigging

 This is probably the strangest looking rig I have ever created. I was not sure how to go about rigging Treville's coat as my experience with clothing is very limited. I have made bones along the length of the coat to allow for some control over it. I am experiencing some problems with skin weights on his collar frills (as seen in lower right corner), where the feather and head joints seem to be influencing them. Attempting to fix the problem by painting weights resulted in vertices being pulled to the origin for unknown reasons, which I will seek help with. Also the frills located on the bottom edge of the coat are a separate object, and I am having difficulty keeping them aligned. Otherwise, the rig is mostly complete, and I shall be rigging D'artagnan immediately after his Persona.

I have also begun designing a stage for the two characters to be placed on for final images.

Senior Thesis II: Texturing

 Look at this handsome devil. Treville's texturing has been completed, and not a moment too soon. With the final weeks of the semester approaching, focus must be shifted entirely to the rigging and posing process of both him and D'artagnan. D'artz still requires some last minute modifications, such as some normal mapping on his clothing to create some variance, but I will proceed forward with the skin binding very soon. The heat mapping abilities of Maya 2013 should be helpful in alieviating some of the problems of skin weight, so hopefully the process will be slightly less burdensome than I have previously dealt with.

Senior Thesis II: Finishing UVs and Feather Action

Major progress with UVs this week as they are for the most part finished and nicely laid out. Texturing from this point should be relatively simple.

Also this week brought some great success in developing Treville's feather, which I am very pleased with. Using the Paint Fur Attributes Tool, I was able to adjust the length of the fur to create a good feather-like taper, and modifying the opacity of each folicle gave the entire form a beautiful and delicate quality that closely matches the concept drawings.

In the coming weeks, creating textures and begining the rigging for both Treville and D'artagnan will come into focus as the semester winds down.

Senior Thesis II: UVs and Feather

Nothing very exciting this wwek except for UVs and further experimentation with Treville's feather. I've make a good amount of progress laying out the UVs, deciding to combine a number of mesh pieces for similarly textured sections. This is especially important for Treville's coat with its diamond patterns.

 

I am still experimenting with Fur to make the feather. I've recently switched from the Dreadlock to Duckling fur types, and have gotten more faborable results, though I still need to adjust the feather to have different thicknesses along it's length.

Senior Thesis II: Details and Fur

The past week I have been working on some of the finer details of Treville's model and figuring out probably the most intricate part of his model: the coat. Treville's coat is very odd in that the sleeves wrap around his body until meeting his arms. I have been wondering how I would achieve this effect, but I believe that separating his current arms from the main mesh, attaching them to the coat (which makes sense), and having a portion of the upper arm extruded from the main mesh enter into a gap in the coat sleeves would work. This would not only honor Treville's concept design, but also connect with the overall idea of creating separate pieces in the model.

Some more minor details have like the robotic hands have been worked on.

I am working on the creation of the feather. Under suggestion, I've been trying to use Fur to create the thickness of it, though am finding it difficult to work with. I will try to fix it, while also looking for alternatives.

In the coming weeks UV mapping will be the focus, as well as the creation of textures.

Senior Thesis II: Masks and Blocking

Probably the biggest accomplishment in the past week or so has been the modeling of Treville's masks. Smoothed, they look almost exactly the way I had drawn them in the concept art. I may bring them into Mudbox for some minor tweaks such as furrowing of brows and wrinkling of foreheads.

The overall blocking of the model is all but complete, with attention paid in particular to the frills in Treville's coat. Also, detailing of the head has progressed. I have created illusion detail (parts that are not connected to geometry but simply hover in place) which is easier than creating complex geometry and edge loops.

Senior Thesis II: Modeling Tweaks and Critique

Overall I've been fleshing out Treville's model to get him ready for texturing. Some minor tweaks, such as creating more detail in his feet and head have been the focus lately, along with creating his spikey frills. I'm also paying attention to the basic modeling of his masks, which I will then take into Mudbox to sculpt.The critique on Wednesday was very helpful in learning some of the aspects of the design I should be pushing. Shaun suggested that I increase the size of the masks to make them more recognizable, as well as suggesting I develop blend shapes for them, which is a very good idea. I also picked up some tips from Joel on a few ways to create Treville's massive feather, since Joel is working with a bird-like design in his project. For his method he combined hair cards and a small piece of geometry to create a feather, which looked very convincing, but he also suggested that I utilized Fur in order to create the desired volume for my feather.