Hey all, hope all is well,
Went into college today for the fundraiser went well, but also bumped into some of graphic design saying that they want our mug shots for the website and the will be doing it on wednesday between 10:30 and 3 i will go in to do it, hope you guys can too.
How have you all been? Havent heard much recently...
Simon
Monday 22 February 2010
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Wheres Ed?
Dont worry I havn't lost ed, but if you were looking for him he's in the public folders polished off / ed folder, and the file name is Ed finished.
Well kinda finished, I just remembered I did nothing to lock off / make unselectable the facial GUI elements that you dont use. Never mind, it'l get done.
Well kinda finished, I just remembered I did nothing to lock off / make unselectable the facial GUI elements that you dont use. Never mind, it'l get done.
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Ed- finished!
Here it is at last guys, I am proud to present Ed finished and skinned. I got rid of the top controller, because it was only causing problems when moving the model/head around. Instead I set up a little script for quick selecting the cluster handle, which you can access from the shelf. No further problems, skinning was a dream, and I gotta say I think he's looking pretty good!
Hows the diss going?
Just thought I'd check everyones progress today? Ive managed to write 619 words today for chapter 2, bringing my total word count for the chapter to 2120. A good day but I still have a little more to write for it so hopefully that just means my other chapters will be shorter! Im going to start chapter 3 tommorow. What about you guys?
Edge
x
Edge
x
Monday 15 February 2010
Sunday 14 February 2010
Guys, Cubes!
Hey, well i decided to try and help Alec with the machine with those sharp edges not sure if he has come up with an alternative, but i have one this was a quick test and just wanted to see what it may look like, and thought i would share it with you! It was so simple cube, edge loop tool, press 3. Sorted! So two pics up close one showing before the other with my alteration and then a long shot of it all.
Saturday 13 February 2010
Couple of videos for ya
yo I got some updates here- before I go further I need some feedback on the head:
My first attempt at the head spline controls was more flexible as youd expect but it kinda looked weird when deforming. Furthermore when you moved the spine around the head just stayed put and the deformation broke the geometery. I've pretty much worked today experimenting with various head/spline handle setups, and the first video posted is a demo of the best solution I could come up with. It also means the head can now translate as well as rotate, because the spline curve is parented to the head controller. (oh yeah its not on the video but I also found a way to link up those squash and stretch deformers to attributes, so theyr all working nicely now too.) See what you think and let me know.
The second video is mainly demonstrating the working stretchy arms. Feels good to post this one I can promise you! I sort of understand how I did it; it required expressions linked to dimension nodes that work out the difference between the stretched distance and and the intial distance, and filled in that difference on the scale values of the joints. Then a couple of clamp nodes linked to the same values so that the arm still bends like a normal IK setup as well. Thanks to Alex Hulse for finding this very helpful tutorial by Paul DiPierro. I learnt a little bit more about scripting and expressions as well through this. Take note guys, a '$' (dollar sign) at the beginning of a word means your stating the word to be a variable, and ';' (semi-colon) means 'end expression'.
This video also demonstrates the new shoulder controls- these work nicely with the stretchy arms. It also shows the wrist and the hand controls are in working order. Sorted the hands out today with set driven keys, and theyr looking sweet. I also went round most of the controllers and locked off and hit attributes that wernt going to be needed, and changed the wireframe colour of the controllers so that it looks nice, and slapped in a master control with 'Ed' written on it for selecting the whole character.
My concerns for tomorrow then are to do something about the teeth and eyes that just dont quite follow the face properly. To be honest though it'l be a miracle if I could get them to follow every possible movement of the head properly, they will probably require some degree of keyframing to keep them in place. I'l do my best to minimise that though. The clusters around the eyes might need some work as well, as parenting them to stay with the rig doesnt end well. The only other thing was the controls for the right ear and wrist that only seem to work in reverse. Skinning shouldnt take too long as most of it works really nicely already, aside from that it's nearly done. So close.
Also, how plausable is it (should it come down to it) to scale the environments up and down to fit the characters? I remember I was able to do it that way round during bare-bear, and it's looking like if the scale isnt right then thats the way we're gunna have to do it here. Getting a whole rig to scale up and down too much is very unlikely.
My first attempt at the head spline controls was more flexible as youd expect but it kinda looked weird when deforming. Furthermore when you moved the spine around the head just stayed put and the deformation broke the geometery. I've pretty much worked today experimenting with various head/spline handle setups, and the first video posted is a demo of the best solution I could come up with. It also means the head can now translate as well as rotate, because the spline curve is parented to the head controller. (oh yeah its not on the video but I also found a way to link up those squash and stretch deformers to attributes, so theyr all working nicely now too.) See what you think and let me know.
The second video is mainly demonstrating the working stretchy arms. Feels good to post this one I can promise you! I sort of understand how I did it; it required expressions linked to dimension nodes that work out the difference between the stretched distance and and the intial distance, and filled in that difference on the scale values of the joints. Then a couple of clamp nodes linked to the same values so that the arm still bends like a normal IK setup as well. Thanks to Alex Hulse for finding this very helpful tutorial by Paul DiPierro. I learnt a little bit more about scripting and expressions as well through this. Take note guys, a '$' (dollar sign) at the beginning of a word means your stating the word to be a variable, and ';' (semi-colon) means 'end expression'.
This video also demonstrates the new shoulder controls- these work nicely with the stretchy arms. It also shows the wrist and the hand controls are in working order. Sorted the hands out today with set driven keys, and theyr looking sweet. I also went round most of the controllers and locked off and hit attributes that wernt going to be needed, and changed the wireframe colour of the controllers so that it looks nice, and slapped in a master control with 'Ed' written on it for selecting the whole character.
My concerns for tomorrow then are to do something about the teeth and eyes that just dont quite follow the face properly. To be honest though it'l be a miracle if I could get them to follow every possible movement of the head properly, they will probably require some degree of keyframing to keep them in place. I'l do my best to minimise that though. The clusters around the eyes might need some work as well, as parenting them to stay with the rig doesnt end well. The only other thing was the controls for the right ear and wrist that only seem to work in reverse. Skinning shouldnt take too long as most of it works really nicely already, aside from that it's nearly done. So close.
Also, how plausable is it (should it come down to it) to scale the environments up and down to fit the characters? I remember I was able to do it that way round during bare-bear, and it's looking like if the scale isnt right then thats the way we're gunna have to do it here. Getting a whole rig to scale up and down too much is very unlikely.
Thursday 11 February 2010
Another render test...
- Textures made for cabinet and vase (colours need adjusting)
- Improved texture of wall
- For the purposes of HD, i've also changed the tiling, so its more detailed and smooth. We can revert to the other tiling in wide shots.
Thoughts?
p.s. I worked on this till the early hours, so do forgive me guys if I'm late in...
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Render Tests
Plenty more to do. Lighten EVERYTHING as there is way too much contrast. Yet this is definitely going somewhere...more to come
Clipboard modelled
This took a good few hours to model. Renders out really quick, low poly, and has a standard lambert applied. I think this should go on the wall near the door. I reckon we could just leave it like this to be honest, no textures needed. . .
As you can see it has complex edge loops and 9 high res vertex. Im really proud of this, I hope the team feels the same. Im on a high. Thanks for the modelling help Si.
As you can see it has complex edge loops and 9 high res vertex. Im really proud of this, I hope the team feels the same. Im on a high. Thanks for the modelling help Si.
Tuesday 9 February 2010
Rigging update
Hey guys, I sent an email off to Alex, hopefully to organise a time when we can fully sit down and just get this sorted out cos its gone on for far too long now. Essentially I had a crack at this tutorial I found that looks like it does exactly what we need it to. Here, have a look at the vid on this link:
awsome stretchy bendy arms
looks perfect right? Unfortunately I havn't even run into any scripting yet (thought there is a fair bit of scripting involved) and I've run into various problems. Point constraints seem to flip the wrist and forearms over 180 degrees, and furthermore most of the scripting and expressions involved are written for arm joints of equal length. Neither ed nor jed have forearms that match the lenght of the upper arms, so I will have to work out how to adjust the scripts accordingly.
Sorry this has taken so long guys, things ought to pick up a bit after this hurdle.
awsome stretchy bendy arms
looks perfect right? Unfortunately I havn't even run into any scripting yet (thought there is a fair bit of scripting involved) and I've run into various problems. Point constraints seem to flip the wrist and forearms over 180 degrees, and furthermore most of the scripting and expressions involved are written for arm joints of equal length. Neither ed nor jed have forearms that match the lenght of the upper arms, so I will have to work out how to adjust the scripts accordingly.
Sorry this has taken so long guys, things ought to pick up a bit after this hurdle.
We can do it...
Qube can now wrok from our homes you need to go into college to download it but yeah, this is good news. Not sure if you guys have checked your email but it is there to see.
Sunday 7 February 2010
I Regret to Inform....
Guysssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss,
Unfortunately, I have struggled with my dissertation badly this weekend, and have made literally 'no' progress. With a deadline on thursday for chapter 2 and 3 I'm in serious shi*. I've spoke to Phil who is in the same situation as myself, and we have both agreed that we simply cannot come into college until we have chapter 2 finished for thursday - minimum. I never thought I'd say this because I hate not working on the project but Im going to take Mon, Tue, and possibly Wed off to catch up. We're making fast progress with the films and so hopefully I can afford to direct a little attention to the diss now, and just get it out the way. Whoever is not behind then please do continue to work on the project, and we will ron - day - voo midweek. By this point the rig should be almost complete and the Ed shot loooking alot better, so animation can dare I say it - commence.
Sorry again,
Edge & Phillipo
Unfortunately, I have struggled with my dissertation badly this weekend, and have made literally 'no' progress. With a deadline on thursday for chapter 2 and 3 I'm in serious shi*. I've spoke to Phil who is in the same situation as myself, and we have both agreed that we simply cannot come into college until we have chapter 2 finished for thursday - minimum. I never thought I'd say this because I hate not working on the project but Im going to take Mon, Tue, and possibly Wed off to catch up. We're making fast progress with the films and so hopefully I can afford to direct a little attention to the diss now, and just get it out the way. Whoever is not behind then please do continue to work on the project, and we will ron - day - voo midweek. By this point the rig should be almost complete and the Ed shot loooking alot better, so animation can dare I say it - commence.
Sorry again,
Edge & Phillipo
Saturday 6 February 2010
Friday 5 February 2010
Rigging progress
I've set up the skeleton on ed and added controls where appropriate. The rotations of the right wrist are all wrong though, they dont match up to the rotations of the controller so its off when the two are connected. I cant remember sultans method of getting them to match. I also cant remember his method of setting up a spine to do ik/fk, which is a shame coz it was really useful. To be honest theres a lot of things from that lecture that i feel i need to use but the notes have been removed from moodle. Either that or they've been moved somewhere, which pretty much means theyr lost forever.
I spoke to Alex Hulse today, who showed me a bit of basic scripting. I'm basically going to have to do some scripting to get stretchy/bendy arms. He also told me you could skin joints to a lattice deformer, which I thought would help with the issues on Splay, but it doesnt work.
I've pretty much done everything i can now without working out the solutions to these problems.
Wednesday 3 February 2010
I know its bad but....
at least he's imported now.....
This is straight out of maya - no layers, no occ, no HD, no colour adjustment, no nothing! (apart from a quick blur) We have a term and a half to make this look amazing.
I think the reason he wasnt importing on the college PC's was to do with import settings or preferences, because it works fine in mine. Ive saved the file with him in, so hopefully it should open fine at college. Si - still ask Hulsey babes about all the crashing n shizzle though....
This is straight out of maya - no layers, no occ, no HD, no colour adjustment, no nothing! (apart from a quick blur) We have a term and a half to make this look amazing.
I think the reason he wasnt importing on the college PC's was to do with import settings or preferences, because it works fine in mine. Ive saved the file with him in, so hopefully it should open fine at college. Si - still ask Hulsey babes about all the crashing n shizzle though....
Im on it
The render takes 3mins and 45secs on my machine, a huge improvment. However it still messes when I import Ed, leading me to believe its nothing to do with the textures nor the memory nor the shiteness of the college PC's - it's something in the file. I reckon its render settings merging or something. Either way, I'm gonna solve it. Im on it right now....
P.S Als I found the wall textures lol
P.S Als I found the wall textures lol
NEW RULE
TEXTURES MUST BE NO BIGGER THAN 2048x2048 - ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM OR COLLEGE PC'S WILL FAIL, ASWELL AS US.
GRIGSBY YOUR NO EXCEPTION.
GRIGSBY YOUR NO EXCEPTION.
Monday 1 February 2010
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