ANIM2001 CG Character Production Logs

Session Notes Concerning my monthly meeting with my mentor Isaiah Ferguson, he presented some minor yet agreeable issues such as creating a pair of elbows and accurate ears for the nomad. In addition to applying further mesh details. I am still attempting to carefully fix the UV mapping issue when smoothing is applied. Which Isaiah suggested was due to the model not permanently being smoothed and this is needed for Maya to have a piece of stable information for Maya to keep track off. Considering the observations I made with Isaiah carefully, I used a game model of the character Deadpool from the model resource once again to study the muscle definition which was an excellent reference as I adjusted my own character's arms. (figure a) Figure A In addition to defining the nomad's muscles, the clothing and affections that were placed over the character. Were refined further as I adjusted small details such as the tooth necklace and scaled the teeth to resemble a more...

Session Notes Shortly before convening with Isaiah Ferguson to review my progress. I continued to attempt to solve the issue of Maya scrambling the UV map of the character's body when smoothing is applied. Despite browsing on CG society and Autodesk forums for a solution it seems there is no definite answer to this issue. Nevertheless, I proceeded to apply a place holder texture for the armour plates just to get a feel for the tone of the character. In addition, I continued to edit the nomad's skin by using some of my old textures for the game Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. In orer to decide where to place skin highlights and shadows. (figure a) Figure A Key Words beetle armour  texture tribal face markings References https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c7/30/45/c730450a39ac1b1f76d237efe2396851.jpg http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/35802-armor-style-what-do-you-expect-or-want-image-heavy-thread/page-136 http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/thr...

Session Notes Using the Injustice Game Model and texture sheet as a reference I successfully manged to export my uv maps as a Photoshop file and slowly painted the face of my nomad. (figure a) Figure A Which surprisingly is starting to look rather impressive begin compared to the Martian Man hunter game model. (figure b) Figure B However, when the mesh is smoothed the uv mapping is distorted with vertices going all over the place. Attempts at deleting the modelling history has done nothing yet to solve the problem apart from detaching some of the mesh which appear to somewhat clean up the distortion. References https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQJAP1AtZI4 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1362634 https://www.3dbuzz.com/forum/threads/183860-Smooth-is-messing-up-UVs-Maybe https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-D53B9E3D-E6E3-4CC3-A38F-3AA3A09205E5-htm.html By Sebastian Jones

Session Notes Playing around n ZBrush! ..... References http://docs.pixologic.com/getting-started/sculpting-a-head/ http://docs.pixologic.com/getting-started/basic-concepts/2d-and-3d-navigation/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4WL11hCGGA https://shop.3dtotal.com/training/training-ebooks-zbrush/cedric-seaut-s-character-modeling-download-only.html IMPORT FROM MAYA TO ZBRUSH http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=129098 http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?3878-Maya-model-into-ZBrush windows->settings and preferences->plugin manager enable the objexport plugin and you will see the option available in the export menu. The import button is located into ztool panel on the top left ! Yes, the Import button at the top of the Tool palette lets you import an OBJ mesh. If you ever wanted to import a DXF model, you would have to select the Polymesh3D tool and then use Tool>Inventory> Import with the DXF option active.26 Aug 2003 By ...

Session Notes After displaying the new mesh to my colleagues their critical feedback led to further adjustments to the ears and neckline of the new head. Figure A Furthermore, with the 3d mesh appearing to feature a clean and evenly spaced topology I began to create a new set of UV mapping before I excitingly create textures. (figure a) ... References https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLhazEa8wmw http://blog.digitaltutors.com/ngons-triangles-bad/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou5WIHhJNak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOVwT-KfsYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou5WIHhJNak http://img13.deviantart.net/d612/i/2010/289/3/b/seamless_human_skin_texture_by_hhh316-d30v1tg.jpg By Sebastian Jones

Session Notes Continuing on from last night, filling in the remaining empty area of the skull and connecting it to the face mesh. I contemplated on the visible triangles on the side of the face before I connected my existing ear from the old nomad head mesh. Furthermore, I later imported the old nomad head and combined it with the new face in order to visually understand how the topology lines would connect and form around the shape of the head. I also created this fusion of the new and old head in order to serve as a Frankenstein backup should my current progress with the clean new head take longer to model. (figure a) Figure A In addition, there was a slight error of the old imported ear not displaying the smooth preview. Thus, in order to solve this issue, the model history was deleted and I combined it with a cube in order for Maya to think the ear mesh is a freshly created cube with no errors. ... References By Sebastian Jones

Session Notes After frustratingly contemplating on the changes James Taylor made in his tutorial. I decided to stop attempting to match my character head to his exactly and simply use his steps as a guideline instead of a rule. Furthermore, drawing the final moments of adjusting the upper vertices of the face. James Taylor interestingly makes use of a sphere to form the shape of the skull. However, as adjustments were being applied to the sphere's vertices. I had to grudgingly repeat my steps since the edge lines of the sphere did not accurately align to the face mesh. (figure a) Figure A In addition, to those issues, I had to reacquaint myself with the soft selection feature which allows me the flexibility to move the vertices of a mesh fluidly compared to the standard rough and cut movement. Figure B However, the soft select feature was incredibly tedious since I had to change the "Fall off Radius" settings. Meaning the area in where I could drag the ...