LCP: Testing Weights

This is a quick test to see what weighting needs to be tweaked for the character. He has been the harder to rig of the two because he has various layers of clothes, which although I have refined as much as possible, still cause problems. You can see his white shirt pop through his waistcoat, that needs to be fixed. Some more tweaking around the neck needs to be done too. I mirrored the weights which seem to have worked fine for his lower body but his arm and torso have a different result. Looks like more manual tweaking where Maya's tools have failed me!

BUT he is practically ready to animate, woohoo!

P.s. I realise the walk cycle is not all that.

Artefact 2 : Power Centres

I have tried to make the characters action come from his power centre, I have also shifted the centre to try to create a contrast in how the character feels from one point to the next.

Artefact 2 from Ian Milliken on Vimeo.

Little, but annoying.

And I'm not talking about wasps. Basically, whenever I mirror any geometry in Maya at the moment and let it automatically merge the vertices, I get random triangles throughout the merge. I'm sure this is an error on my part, one of those 'I've checked a box somewhere by accident and can't remember where' situations. Anyway, to fight it I have to join up all the vertices manually, very time consuming when it is happening on EVERYTHING I MODEL.

Here's what Maya is doing at the moment (look in the middle of the mesh):

Here's the manual correction:

About 30% There

This is what I have so far on artefact 2, yes I have neglected them due to the client project but I promise to be better and show something weekly, completed or not. I did want to finish this but encountered the problem of only spending a few hours on it (most of which was acting out). It shows the basic timing and action I want form the sequence, much much tweaking and facial animation needs to be done, so I'd estimate that it is 30% done.

The artefact focuses on power centres, the aim is for the character to enter with his power centre in his chest, and then when he sees what he is looking for it drops to his hips. The character should enter determined and focused but end relieved, creating a "there you are!" moment.

LCP Character Models

Theo is almost completed, he is modelled and has some basic textures on him, attempted rigging today which went a bit haywire. May make some adjustments to his face as I feel it is lacking detail, but we'll see what feedback I get.

 

 

 

 

I started modelling George today, starting with his head. This is it so far, I have the basic shape, I just need to add hair and a bit more detail, then I can crack on with the body and texturing.