breaking news...

THE MODELING IS COMPLETE! 

 and now the weather...scattered showers will commence with a light south westerly breeze

ENOUGH

so wanna see? bet you do...o go on then you've twisted my arm you scamps.

Pictorials

o lord..she looks like she was beaten with an ugly stick doesnt she?! well this is the basic head geometry stictched together...you can see i split the head into an eye panel, mouth and nose panel and connected it to the back of the head i had previously...breaking up the modelling seems to be a good working method for me.

miss pocahontus...the face still has some hard edges going on but my soften edge tool has gone to pot currently so this image will have to do for now. Im very pleased with how its looking and that i've finished! nooooooo waayyyyyyy! Its taken much longer than anticipated but hopefully getting a good model down will mean less problems for the next series of jobs. I think if i had worked in a group i would have been pushed into completing this stage earlier where as i was a bit more free to take my time over things...not always the best way! I wouldnt say this was out right wallace and gromit copy in terms of its style...i think i've taken essences from different areas of my research such as aardman, coraline and tim burton. However i've made it my own :)
once smoothed :)
ok next on the list of tasks to complete

• Texturing - never done...ever! haha! I've had a lot explained to me though and taken notes so i guess its all in the practise. 
  
• Blend Shapes - i've touched on this mildly before never in so much detail. I've completed my blend shape drawings so i know which expressions i wish to include for my model. (i would like these 2 sections complete by this week)
  
• Rigging - actually quite confident about this...i've drawn out my proposed rig and plotted my EP curves ready to go. (couple days)
  
• Skinning - never painted weights so this should be fun! (3 days)
  
• Animating - As time is running out, i wont be able to complete the short i originally thumbnailed. Instead i will complete a walk cycle/ demonstration of the rigs capabilities. (whatever time there is left)
  
• Lighting/Rendering - from my previous research i know the setting i need to apply to my scene so it hopefully shouldnt take too long. Since the final piece will be a short walk cycle im guessing it shouldnt take too long to render either...spesh with the help of the old render farm.

so not much then...lets go go go!!!

bits and bobs

its been an odd day today...

had a discussion with Jared about my progress...or....lack of...well no not lack of, rather slowing down, confusion opinions etc. He also went through a bit of texturing with me as i've never done it before so its like stepping into a canoe without a paddle (im sure thats a phrase) I found the talk very useful and the methods he suggested but I then did ask Yaniv to show me how to complete these as its one thing to talk a load of information at me and another to show me, get me to have a go...Yaniv's very good at teaching so thank you :)

Another problem i have been having with the model was the strange triangle appearing on Poca's head...this was down to an accidental face being deleted but i really couldn't see why adding a new one would make it stick out like a sore thumb. Jared suggested it could be a few faces clashing with one another. However it wasn't and after deleting and remaking the face we were unable to merge the verts...pain...we (me and grigglesface) tried my maya file on his computer...success the verts merged and with a little help from Simon the triangle had disappeared via normals > set normal angle and using the default settings. I have gone back and tried this on my version of maya but it doesn't work so Im now convinced there is issue with my version of the software....i shall seek out a new one over easter. 

I then asked the Ross-man some rigging issues about spline handles etc...another beautiful masterpiece drawing stays stashed in my notebook for safe keeping. I was originally considering spline handles for Poca's pig tails but Dave suggested simply using a jiggle deformer which would acheive the desired look for some nice secondary animation. 

So this is a general blog to thank all those who helped me today and continue to help me 

CHHHHEEERRRS GUUUUUYS :D

Some pics to show the resolved problemo:

ok...it doesnt look very obvious does it...but it is...its very annoying and shows up if rendered! therefore PAIN!
The new hair resolved thanks to the help of grigbear and simon through the use of normals > set normal angle. Cheers lads!

EP

this is the way the industry works

the industry works

the industry works

this is the way the industry works

so i read in me booooook

Modeling the face got er...boring...so i decided to take a break and plan my rig using EP curves so that i can simply snap the joints into place and hopefully *fingers crossed* have correct joint orientation so that the joints will rotate correctly. 

Bring forth the screen prints:

create > EP curve option box...set to 1 linear

chose appropriate view for creating your curve, position in place...right click change verts where required. Only add verts for where you will snap your joints, this will hopefully speed up the rigging and aid joint orientation. Curves are labelled appropriately as is industry practice. 

Here you can see I have created a leg curve and my reverse foot control curve ready for rigging...not sure if you need both but hey.

Make sure your curves fall correctly into position in all view points...check to make sure...don't want to be snapping a rig half way across the grid now! Fingers can be copied, pasted, adjusted in size accordingly. Re-name to pinky, ring, mid, pointer, thumb curves. Its good practice to be naming all elements of your scene and helps you for naming your joints later on. You don't need to create full chains ready for rigging (space between wrist and fingers) as its simple enough to create the joints in between. Marking out correctly now will save a lot of time later on. 
The spine is up to you how many joints/breaks you wish to have...its of course down to the character and what you want them to do. Whether your going to have a spline or FKs for controlling your character.

'cos its too funny not to put on...

yes yes yes...i will remove in due course...but for now...miles of smiles :D

hair ahoy!

the face has been causing me immense PAIIIIIIN.

jokes but its been a bit confuddle dundling (doesnt that make it sound sweeeeeet) NO

so i have been concentrating my efforts on Poca's hair. Originally i was going to extrude the top faces from the head geometry and tweak the verts to create the desired shape. However, last week Yaniv showed me how using curves could be more effective for creating the hair. So i tried this...then i tried extruding a cylinder....it exploded thanks to my idiocy at extruding verts...

...the explosion and the many many faces that would need deleting so it smoothed ok would take a good while. SO...back to curves and i tried not to complete a finished model, just create the basic shape and converted to polys to then finish the modeling.

This was another attempt i tried by pulling the verts of a poly sphere...didnt work very well.

Ok so heres the almighty curves dum dum duuuuuumm. Poca's hair is sort of like an ice-cream blob...aardman style hair So i places a number of curves to line up with the front and side profiles of the character, changing the width accordingly. You can see where i have started the front section of hair too...

sections lofted...not looking too bad but i find its much easier to get the basic shape and tweak afterwards...
Section is converted to polys then shaped further.
Soften edges through the normals options. Perhaps it still requires some more edge loops so its not so dependant on the smooth. The other pig tail can simply be mirrored...copied etc since the hair was created in halves....time saver...exactly what i need at this moment!
Soon after this...the duplicate tool...lofting tool...nothing displays...strrrraaange. I've cleaned my outliner and...no success. Tried resetting the display settings to see if this was the problem...no success. It was time to walk away before i threw the laptop out the window...tomorrow is another day and if it still not working, best head on in to college and use the computers there see if its something to do with my mad maya.

'ANG ON THERE SKIPPER...there's more

yes the tools are back in toooooown...no idea why...they must have heard me moaning or decided to gimme a break but after losing the duplicate, delete history, merge verts, loft tool (just about everything u need to model) they arrived back and i was on hot persuit to get back on track.

more images!

converted to polys...now the verts can be properly tweaked to give the final blob hair shape.

creating the hair line with nurbs curves:

Build up the shape like a hat, making sure the verts dont stray too far from the head geometry.
I only focused on one side as i was going to half and mirror over the geometry to ensure it was symmetrical 

loft...

The hair piece...shes actually bald! After trying to connect the verts of the pig tails, i found the best and simplist method was to allign the geometry into the correct place and combine. This does not have any undsired affect once smoothed and gives a good reflection of plasticine just pushed stuck onto the hair. Although I have combined it, I may need to seperate when it comes to texturing to make sure all areas are covered. The fringe remains detached at the moment. 

Why does this happen if I use normals > soften edge too much? Is there a limit to using this tool?
Yeah yeah i know i know...wheres her eye thing...stop looking at that...were looking at the hair here. Side view:

The finished do....very pleased with this outcome :) Just shows that its worth it to keep going no matter how many attempts/ways you try 

And in wireframe on shaded just for all you nut bags that want a closer look at how it was constructed. 

o maya...you are a weird one....AGAIN

o maya your just full of suprises you *blushes*

U WONT DISPLAY DUPLICATE GEOMETRY NOR WILL YOU LOFT

not helpful...as its setting me back even further trying to create the face...the face of life....

i do however have a pig tail...i was trying to duplicate when i discovered the incompetance on mayas part...no idea why this is happening....gonna try cleaning up the file and see if that helps since theres all sorts of crazy experiments going on in the scene file. 

please dont corrupt....pllleeeeeeaaasee.

make a copy...make a darn tootin copy woman.

prob a sign to give it a rest for the night...

o maya...you are a weird one

so i have been getting model to tip top quality but it wasnt until i mirrored the geometry that i realised so much of it was still...not 100%. I also noticed mirroring the geometry had made some weird changes to my vertices...flattening them...changing them to one. I tried a few different methods, inserting more edge loops, hoping breaking up the geometry would aid mayas calculations when mirroring. I also tried to fill in the geometry gaps of the collar square at the sides so it wouldnt crush flat this detail i wished to keep. No luck however and after racking my brains i tried just pulling the verticies way out from how i wanted them and...bingo....it worked. Maya is strange sometimes...really is...ah well..another problem solved. Im still going over the model and tweaking...the shapes not completely right and needs rounding off. The collar is looking much better now though.

mirroring geometry resulted in flattening of verticies, instead of 4 i have 2...no idea why this has happened. 

Same with the back of the geometry...i guess my deleted faces may have confused Maya in its calculating of mirroring. Here the verts are pinched in...results in odd looking smooth.
Solution? If your having problems like this just make the shape your trying to create more obvious for Maya
Of course this will affect the mirror but then at least you have the correct number of verts to tweak into the desired shape.
Result...better smooth, details are kept.
Other alterations:

So as im going through and tidying up...ive noticed that Poca's arms are weeerrrrhey too long. This is down to my model sheet being....well...wrong (lesson for future projects) but im never too good at getting arm length proportions correct...i did a quick rig for the arm and rotated it down to see how long her arm would actually be...she'd basically be scraping her knuckles along the floor! No child deserves that...no matter how much they want to be a gorilla. Ive gone and pulled the verts in so the arms at a better length. Im not aiming for correct proportions here but ones that dont look completly wrong!

the model against its reference sheet. You can see where my arm was A. not straight and B. wrong length. Im aware that the model doesnt match up entirely to its model sheet...thats because the feet werent touching the floor and where i've shifted it slightly.

Step back and see. Yep very pleased with this now :D