[ND16] 05: Water Character Complete; Full Rig Demonstration

[Major Project] 47: Primary Chem Equipment Modelled & Rigged for Animation

Bunsen Burner

Bunsen Burner L>R: Wire-on-shaded, Smooth and X-Ray

Bunsen Burner Outliner

Gas Tubing

Gas Tubing T>B: Wire-on-shaded, Smooth and X-Ray

Gas Tubing Outliner

Bunsen Burner Gas Tubing - Main Influence [source]

Gas Taps

Gas Taps T>B: Wire-on-shaded, Smooth

Gas Taps Outliner

Erlenmeyer Flask

Erlenmeyer Flask L>R: X-Ray + Wire-on-shaded, X-Ray + Smooth, Smooth

Erlenmeyer Flask Outliner

Tripod & Wire Gauze

Various Tripod & Wire Gauze Shots

Tripod & Gauze Outliner

Orthographics & Primary Models

Orthographics with X-Ray Wire-on-shaded Models

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[Major Project] 39: Iron Character; Facial Expressions Demo

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[Major Project] 37: Hydrogen Character; Brow & Mouth Shapes Complete

Hydrogen posed render

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[Major Project] 35: Iron Character; Mouth Shapes Demonstration

Advice from Alan regarding Oxygen's mouth shapes suggested that it is a good idea to push the character's mouth as far as possible when creating them, thus allowing an animator to push the mouth further if required; I have done this for Iron. This does not mean that Iron's mouth is necessarily going to be pushed to its maximum as part of my lip-sync, since this is dependant on the volume of his speech. This marks the completion of Iron's creation process.

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[Major Project] 34: Oxygen Character; Fully Complete

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[Major Project] 31: Oxygen Character; Rigging 01 - Controls Turnaround

Next up is constraining the controls to Oxygen's joints, before setting the limits. When Oxygen's rig is complete I will be able to begin creating the pre-vis for the majority of my animation, while I skin and rig Water. Meanwhile I shall also continue my search for voice-over actors, and will use placeholder voice recordings for the time being. The classroom also needs to be created, but I have a good idea of the method I'm going to use to design it: the objects shapes will all be inspired by chemistry equipment, and their textures will be simple & limited to a maximum of 4 colours each.

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@Alan [Major Project] 22: Hydrogen; Complete Rig Demo & Brow Scaling Issue

In future I will be creating a Face-Cam for Hydrogen, a Pose Library for his brows and mouth, and a Controls Interface using MEL Scripting. However since Hydrogen's primary set-up is now fully complete (modelling, skinning, rigging & texturing), I will complete these 'extra bits' at a later date.

I have encountered one final problem, this time involving Hydrogen's eyebrows not scaling correctly with the rest of Hydrogen's geometry via the World CTRL, even with Inherits Transform turned off in the appropriate areas (the Geometry_Grp and Brows_Misc_Grp).

The eyebrow ribbons scale absolutely fine...

...but the eyebrow geometry does not.

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[Major Project] 13: Iron Character; Face Cam Complete

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[Major Project] 12: Iron Character; Brow & Blink Set-Up Complete

Last things to do with Iron are creating the mouth blend shapes and his Face Cam. After Iron is posed in preparation for his turnaround, I will move on to retrying my modelling of Oxygen.

Iron's eye joints

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[Major Project] 09: Iron Rigging Progress 01; It's Alive!! (Mostly)

Both sides of the rig have been set up, but I have only shown one side animating to save unnecessary keyframing at this point. Next up will be facial rigging.

One Problem Solved, Another One Arises
This post has been delayed by my solving of the issue of the Head_Rotate_Ctrl_Off_Grp having unexpected transformation values, causing the Head_Shake_CTRL to appear to have values, solving this required me to unparent the relevant portion of the controls chain and remove its constraints, however after sorting the issue, re-parenting and re-connecting the constraints, a new small problem involving the brow control has arisen. Note: The brow moves fine when all but the Head_Rotate_Ctrl or the Head_Rotate_Ctrl_Off_Grp are activated.

I have spent hours yesterday and this morning trying to solve this new supposedly basic issue, to no avail. It appears I am going to have to give in for now and get help with it asap at Uni tomorrow. I'm at least glad I managed to independently figure out the source of & solve the original transformations issue.

In preparation for help I have removed the constraints between the control & joints for the*:
Head_Rotate_Ctrl_Off_Grp
Head_Rotate_Ctrl
Brow_Ctrl_Grp
Brow_Ctrl

Eye Spy
Another issue that has arisen since I first wrote this post is the pupils being extra temperamental in relation to their controls, I will show this issue in person when I seek help tomorrow. This has resulted in the odd cross-eyed state of Iron's pupils seen in the video.

*The issue still happens without the constraints, so it would appear it is not caused by the constraints themselves, but possibly by some issue within the parent chain.

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{Adaptation} A; "Weird Science" Infographic - B; Helium Turnaround & "Art Of"

Adaptation A

Adaptation B

{Adaptation B} 64: Helium Character; Rendered Turnaround w/ Sound

I will post this again once all the required Adaptation work has been completed and compiled later today.

[Narrative] 48: A Texture, Base 'Making Of' Theme, Female Rig

Before Sukhi took over and continued the Making Of, I had established the basic theme and colour scheme based off of the cupboard doors seen on our animation. Unfortunately she was unable to access the font I had used, for it would not download. I also designed the "Angry Snail Pizza" texture for the pizza box that hits our male character. I also created the rig for the female character, as well as added her controls. I still need to upload a video of the movement of the skinned female hands and head which I had performed - the rest of the skinning process was performed by Adam.

Original Making Of title page

Angry Snail Pizza texture map.

Texture source images:

French flag

Snail (pre-edit)

Female rig - orthographics

Female rig - perspective