Evaluation

FGA6 was a more challenging project then the previous too due to me attempting to produce things using software that I do not have alot of experience using. For this project I attempting to create a 3D model of a creature that I had designed for the pervious project then rig it up and animate the model in a run cycle aswell as then creating a plasticine model of the creature I was creating on Maya. It was all very time consuming project to do as I had to relearn everything that I was taught the previous year about maya.

Having to relearn Maya for this project took alot of time and because of that I had to focus most of my time and energy on doing it, giving me less time to do the other things I said I would like to do for this project. I remembered the basics of modeling on maya so making the base model wasn’t too difficult just more problematic in getting some of the shapes of the model looking correct, mainly with the beak and feet of my creature. Overall though getting the model to the level in which I could transfer it over to ZBrush and they begin to start to add extra detail was most likely the smoothest part of this project.

ZBrush is another piece of software that I had to learn this project but I wanted to do it so I could add extra details and texture to my model to make it look nicer. I watch alot of ZBrush video tutorials in my spare time leading up to me using ZBrush to when I first loaded it up I had a basic knowledge of how stuff worked for when I began to sculpt on my model. Zbrush wasn’t to hard to come to grips so it didn’t take me too long to finish my model to a standard that I liked. When I tried to create the displacement map/normal map from my model so I could turn it into a texture in maya, there was an error and I was not able to make the map so I had to start again which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I managed to make my model look better the second time around. I was happy with how the texture came out on my model when I imported it back to Maya, the detail wasn’t too over detailed I thought it was nice and subtle however when I would render out the image all the detail on the feathers seemed to disappear which was disappointed to see as that was how the the model would look in the animations. I tried my best in adjusting and adding lighting to my model which can help bring out the textures in my normal map although it brought out the detail in the feet and beak it didn’t do too much to help the feather texture on the body of the bird.

Animating my model in Maya was another thing I had to try and relearn aswell as the rigging on my model as the last model I made on Maya was simple compared to my Flampingo meaning there was alot more to rig and to think about when rigging it. I had the skeleton that I drew which made the rigging easier however, there was a key problem with my bird. I model it and drew the skeleton/rigged as if it were a penguin however I wanted the bird to move as if it were a chicken but I did not model it to have the tight muscles that chickens have to make them able to move the way they could move so if I were to do anything again I would remodel the leg area of the bird so it moves more like a chicken and less like a penguin. There wasn’t too many problems with the animation and rigging except from early on when I first began to animate something went wrong with the weights that I painted which meant I had to start again on my animation and re paint the weights for it. However this too ending up being a blessing in disguise aswell because I then got told that I could make a ‘reference’ of my model which would create another save that had my model in it but if I were to come across an error in my model, I could go back to the original model and then fix it and it would reload the reference with the fix featured.

The main disappointment for this project was my plasticine model that I created it but I think the main reason for this was because most of my time was focus on the main part of my project which was my 3D work. It was the first time for me making a wire mesh and I actually enjoyed doing it however it was the down fall for my model as the wire I used was to weak so when I applied plasticine it either go through the gaps or bend the mesh if I tried to smooth it out. If I were to do it again, I’d use stronger wire for the mesh and make the gaps smaller which would of hopefully stopped most of the problems that I had with it.

And lastly, for this project we also had to make a portfolio for our work, originally I was going to make an iWeb site however I wasn’t to fond of it and afew things went wrong which ended up stopping me from being able to use it so I decided that I would try and make a flash website as I found afew tutorials on how to do it. Once again it was a big learning curve for me to deal with as I have no had that much experience with flash except from afew tutorials and even if you do know what you’re doing, flash still has a way with not working. I spent most weekend nights learning new script to try and make my website as good as possible, some script taking longer to solve then others mainly the roll over image script as the one I found was for action script 2 where I was using action script 3. I tried to keep my website design as simple as possible and easy to navigate through and I think I achieved it however the file itself is to large for me to put online and will take me a while to do able to decrease the size of my image files to be able to put it online but I will work on doing that over the holidays so it should hopefully be online soon.

Overall I am happy with how this project has turn out, I think my second animation turned out well and so did my website, the only things I would try and improve as stated earlier on would be my run cycle animation and my plasticine bird model.

Model.

For this project I made a plastecence model of my creature aswell as the 3D model however I don't think this turned out successfully at all and I'm not happy with it one bit. There was alot of problems getting it smooth as the wire mesh I used was too weak and would bend if I put too much pressure on it. I'm very disappointed with how it turned out and don't think I'll be making one in the future.

Mature Lady.

In my bio for my Flampingo I wrote about how Mature Lady wear their beaks as hats so I decided it would be fun to paint what one looks like, it was quite nice to do and to have a break from doing alot of 3D work.






Here are 4 development image of my mature lady.



Here is the final Image of my mature lady, I might do more to it later on but atm I'm happy with it and I need to get my website together.

Final Design.

Here is the final design and character sheet for the Flampingo, including the skeleton and size comparison.

Beaks.

So I wanted to give my bird a colourful beak so I look at the designs of a Toucan beak for inspiration;


Here are the first set of designs I came out with although I don't really like either of them.



for the first 2 design, I didn't feel either of them was working so I decided to go back and study a toucans beaks some more and from there I got the 3rd design and decided that this was the design I was aiming for from the start.

Here are some alternate design that I can up with for the final design, I decided to go with the middle design as I enjoy the extra colour it adds to the design.

Zbrush model, finally complete.

So after having started again, I have managed to finish my zbrush model, here are afew of the pictures;




Overall I'm pleased with how the model has turned out, mainly the feet and the head. The body itself could do with a bit more work to it, the feathers are abit weird and not really all that clear and I couldn't get some of the other feathers to work at all which would of adding abit more diversity to the image.

On a side note, I won't be using a displacement map to put the texture onto my Maya model, it turns out that a normal map would work just as well if not better.

Restarting Zbrush model.

I found out yesterday that there is an error in my Zbrush model, although not exactly sure what the error is however it is stopping me from being able to create a displacement map for my model, because of this I have to redo it again.

This is not exactly a bad thing, I might lose afew days off my schedule but it means I can learn from some of the things I did wrong last time to improve the way my model looks this time. The main thing is to not import my smooth version of my maya model in Zbrush as that causes it to be too big but instead to use the none smooth version which so far seems to be working out alot better. Hopefully should have the model complete again by tonight or atleast tomorrow morning to then start rigging and animating.

Skeleton

So I've been researching into the skeleton for my bird, mainly for rigging purposes. I looked at a variety of different animal skeletons to see how they are created and which is most like my design.

Here are afew of the images I looked at;(1)

(2)(3)

These are the main 3 I looked into as I thought they best represented the design of my bird creature, from there I came up with this design for my skeleton;









(1)http://www.dkimages.com/discover/DKIMAGES/Discover/Home/Animals/Birds/Anatomy/Skeletons/Penguin/Penguin-1.html
(2)http://www.headsandtails.co.uk/Skulls&skeletons/S&S.htm
(3)http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/explore/embryology/day14/skeleton.html

Wire Mesh

So aswell as making my 3D model, I've also been making a wired mesh for my plasticine model, this was my first time creating a wire mesh so took me a while to get use to it but I really enjoyed back it, it was weirdly relaxing to do once I got into it but quite difficult to start off.




Its not the tidiest or the best wire mesh but I think it will be fine as a base to use for my model. I will continue to post updates.

3D Model.

So these past couple of weeks I have been working on creating my 3D model ready to put into Zbursh.. Surprisingly there was not any major problems with it thankfully but as I know, the fact that the model looks nice doesn't mean it will animate nicely but I can hope. Here are afew
pictures of it;









The only major problem I had which was not so much a problem but an annoyance was that I had tris on my model when I should only have quads so I had to spend alot of time making them into squares so that I will not have any major problems afterwards, there is afew tris left but they are in areas what won't be animated so hopefully will not cause too much of a problem. Overal I am happy with how it has came out with so far.

ZBrush

So, my original plan for this project was to create a model in maya, make it detailed in zbrush and then animate it but obviously as I've found out and realized, the detail I add to my model in zbrush would make the model too complex to animate so recently I've been looking into how I can solve this problem and the best solution for it.

I've done alot of research into this to make sure I'm doing the right thing. I've researched into;

Normal Maps, just to research my mind and make sure I have a basic understanding of it;
http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Normal_Maps

then from there I went on to look at bump maps for the same reason;
http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Bump_Maps

This was just abit of reading so that I have an understanding of maps because well, through reading tutorials and forum posts alot of maps are mention which could become confusing if I did not know what they meant.

Displacement maps, these are the maps I shall be attempting to use to add detail to my maya model so that I am able to animate it. Phil Shaw originally informed me of these maps when I was asking him the best way to go about doing what I want to do, from there I began to research into them to understand what they are and how they work, which including reading some tutorials and alot of forum posts such as this one;
http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Displacement_Maps

and it does seem like the best way to go about doing it, sure my model won't have the same high quality finish it will have in zbrush however the displacement maps should make my model look detailed without causing too many problems when animating. This will most likely be a trail and error thing but I've found a useful tutorial to help me;

http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/ZBrush_To_Maya_Displacement_Guide

So this is where I will begin, however talking to Phil he said I could do the UV maps in Zbrush which would be easier using there MasterUV addon tool since I'm having problems sorting out my UVs on Maya.

Once I've done that I might try using diffuse maps to try and increase the detail however if that causes animation problems I will delete it.

Design.

Here is the design for the creature that I'm going to be modeling and animating. The design of the bird came from doing an automatism drawing of my friend which got me the shape of its head and from they I thought it looked like a bird so just designed the shape of its body. I can't see it being too much of a problem to model is Maya, I think the challenge will come from trying to model the head area but I don't see it being a major problem most likely more time consuming then difficult.

Right now I'm going to be looking into getting the skeleton of this creature done so that when it comes to rigging the model I can make it as accurate as possible and give it a good amount of realism in its movements. I will be looking as the skeletons of animals that I think my design is most like, things such as chickens or penguins and then looking into the way in which they move i.e walking and running. Another focus will be on the neck of my creature, that seems to be its most distinctive feature and I will have to look into how it bends and moves, how far it will be able to bend and the way in which it bends.

First Post.

So, for this project (FGA6) I decided I would try and improve my 3D modeling and animation skills mainly for employment purposes and also because I did 2D on the last project so doing this will keep it fresh and stop me from getting bored with my work (Hopefully!) The main thing I will be doing is a 3D model of a character I have designed on the last project and then hopefully add some detail to it with zbrush and then animate it on Maya hopefully this won't cause too much trouble.