Product & Testing (Diary)

Class Task: Joints and Bones - Week 1 and 2

In the beginning of the lesson, we had to learn what joints and bones are to help with building the skeleton for the model we were given.

While knowing the basics and the difference between joints and bones through my prior knowledge and research, the class lesson became much easier for me.

While I was creating the skeleton for the model, the most efficient way to start was from bottom up, therefore meaning starting from the feet and gradually work your way to the top of the head.

What I started off with adding 'cluster' to the different sections of the model which is where the 'bones' of the model would be and replaced them with 'locators'. After that I started to add joints which was the legs down to the feet of the model and made joints for the model provided.

After I finished the joints of the bottom half for the model by using a variant of different techniques and tools which include 'mirror joints', and 'parent' to build the skeleton.

The same techniques that are listed above and also mentioned on my research page were used as I gradually started making my way up, the spine and left arm.

As the left arm was created, I had to connect the 'left shoulder joint' to the 'chest joint' I moved onto the left hand and started to make individual joints for each finger, starting with the 'pinky' finger joints and gradually working my way to the 'thumb' joints by using the 'locators' and going to 'attribute editor' to adjust the joints more there.

After adjusting the finger joints on the left side, I then proceed to 'parent' the joints to the wrist making the 'wrist joint' the parent to the finger and thumb joints, I chose to use the tool 'mirror joints' to mirror all the joints from the shoulder to the fingers to the other side to have a complete skeleton.

Self Directed Character Modelling

In-between Week 1 and 2, I had some free time and chose to not only choose my character and start creating the skeleton for my chosen character but to also decided to try and complete the character modelling project assigned which was to model an alien.

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As the slide shows the screenshots I took through my progress above, I applied my skills from prior experience of the previous semesters and modules to create the complete alien model which will be towards the end of this section.

What I started to model first for this project was the eye which was very simple because I put a placeholder there before the actual thing so that I could build the body around it.

After putting the sphere by the position of where the eye would be, I then moved onto building the body itself. I started going to 'polygon primitive' and chose the sphere as it is the most accurate shape for the model according to the reference and distorted its shape using the 'lattice' tool, this tool was very useful to get a more accurate shape for the body of the subject I am trying to model and proceeded to tweak the sphere to get a more accurate shape.

After creating a more accurate body shape of the by using the 'lattice' tool, 'multi cut' tool and 'edge loop' for cutting out to make a more flushed look without pressing '3' on your keyboard to have a smoothened look and the 'mirror' tool to mirror the polygon when it has been cut in half, I moved onto the legs which mainly consisted of 'extruding' the existing shape and using the 'edge' tool to adjust the polygon more to get a more accurate shape of the legs and feet.

After the legs and feet I proceeded to move onto the modelling process of the tongue and teeth which consisted of me using the same tools I used to create the body and legs of the model. The obstacles I ran into while creating tongue especially was mainly a problem of there being 2 vertices right below each other, I was able to solve this problem by retracing my steps and mainly using the 'multi cut' tool.

After finally managing to conquer all the obstacles I had while modelling the alien, I finally had the completed outcome which I was proud of which is showcased below.

The next step for this alien model I believe is to eventually add texture to the body, eyes and colour to the tongue and teeth.

Skinning: Blending Weights - Week 3

Binding

For the binding process, I had to bind these specific parts of the model which are listed below:

- Legs/trousers

- Feet/shoes

- Torso/shirt and arms

- Head

Like before with the joints and bones process I started with the bottom and made my way up, I selected the feet/shoes and the joints in the same area and used the 'bind skin' tool and changed the setting to 'selected joints' as the model is not 1 solid mesh.

The main problem I had with the binding process was when it came to the 'painting weights' for the elbow and the thumb twist. These 2 specifically I had problems with for a similar reason which is which vertices I had to select so that the movement can look natural. With some time, I was able to select the right vertices for both the 'thumb twist' joint have the 'thumb twist' joint move how I wanted it to.

Blending

For the blending process, it was a rather simple process of trying to blend in between 2 joints, where the bone is set to have a more natural look when each joint is bent.

As usual, I started from the bottom of the model and worked my way up, it was very important to blend where all the bones were, where the joints connected. I started to key frame each joints subtle movements on each joint that moves to get a more natural looking look when each joint moves.

I did not have any problems with the blending process as I found it simple and tired to make it smooth to my own eye.

Chosen Character: Week 1, 2, 6 & Ongoing

As I had some free time throughout the process of creating the skeleton, binding and blending the model given in class I chose to work on the Gwen model I had chosen out of all the models provided, I chose this particular model as I wanted to challenge myself further especially knowing that I had not tried to rig a piece of clothing before.

I first decided to work on the skeleton of the Gwen model by following similar steps as creating the rig in class to create the biped skeleton on my chosen model.

After I created my first attempt of the biped skeleton for the Gwen model, I had not realised my mistake and after getting help I proceeded to bind my model to the biped skeleton but changed the setting to 'joint hierarchy'. I realised my mistake with the biped skeleton as I started to brush up more on the binding process of the model, I had realised that I had initially made too little joints for the spine and shoulder. After a few attempts, I was finally able to sort out the problem by redoing the spine, reparenting certain joints and redo the binding process properly to get the outcome I want.

My main obstacle so far during the whole process was how I was going to pair the biped skeleton I had made at the time to the chosen model which ended up being my biggest delay so far during the whole process, after some consultation, I was told that all I needed to do was to change the 'bind skin' option from 'selected joints' to 'joint hierarchy' and I was able to move on to the next step of the whole process which was making sure everything was binded properly and start the blending process.

Class Task 2: Controls - Week 5 - 6

As I was completely done with the binding and blending process for the model provided and made the legs of the have 'IK' controls instead of 'FK', I had to start making controls for the model to become a working rig.

As per usual, I started with the bottom and worked my way up as for me it became the most beneficial way to get the work done faster as the part that requires more concentration especially since I needed to add more 'attributes' to certain shapes to make them controls.

As I was able to 'add attributes' and key in certain values for the feet rotations, I slowly made my way up the model and continued to add controls for the specific areas listed below:

- The spine

- The neck

- The head

- The arms

- The hands/fingers

The last one on the list, the fingers was personally tricky for me, not because of the fact I was not able to connect the joints to their new controls but because I continuously had a different graph to the graph shown to us even though I followed the exact same steps.

To explain more in detail, as I followed the required steps for the hand controls, when it came to the fingers spreading and closing, the graph looked very different to the one shown to us even though it works the exact same and just fine.

I had tried to redo this step for the hands multiple times but unfortunately got the same result for the graph each time even though as stated before, everything works as it should

After going through some obstacles through the whole process with the controls, I was able to add the final piece which was to add a control which controls the whole entire model at once which will be shown below.

For an extra with the whole process, I need to make sure I have added all limitations to certain controls so that an animator would not be able to flex certain joints out of proportion.

Update: As I have added all the limitations to the joints, it will make it harder for the animator to break the rig.

Continuation: Alien rendering

When I was finally able to make time for the alien rendering, it was a relatively quick process because I had done most of the work and I just needed to add the UV layer on the Alien's eye and actually render the alien model.

Firstly I decided to start with adding a UV layer to both the body of the alien and the eye, to do that I had to split the model into multiple sectors and after "cutting" the model into different sections, I proceeded to "unfold" the different sections of the model.

After "cutting" and "unfolding" the body, I then proceeded to move onto the "UV" layout of the body by "straightening" the shell of each body parts and to organise the body parts.

While I was viewing the body parts with the "UV Grid" texture I rotated some of the "shells" so that all of the "UV Grid" texture that is displayed is all facing the same direction, I repeated this process with the tongue, cornea and teeth.

Throughout the process so far to this point, I did not have any major problems, the only minor problem I encountered was during the unfolding process as the inside of the mouth was still connected just to find out that there were 2 "vertices" above one another, this was easily resolved by deleting one of the "vertices".

After completing the process shown above, I had to create the set, such as adding lighting, the "plane" as the ground, "area lights" around the model at certain angles and "aiskydome" which provides light not only around the model but for the entire set.

During the process of the set up, I had to set up a shot camera and "lock" the camera in the position I preferred for the demo showreel.

After completing the set up process, and tweaking the "area light" lights to get the right lighting which would not be too much or too little for the rendering process while looking at the arnold "renderview".

After all of the above was completed I moved onto keyframing the model from one point on "frame one" to keyframing the other point at "-359" degrees on rotation so that the animation won't finish at the same point but also the rotation will be smooth for the demo reel.

I then decided to move onto the eye texture by opening the "UV" image I have of the eyeball geometry. After this I added the image of the eye that I will be using or the texture, as the pupil of the picture's eye is too small for the model, I used the "eclipse selection" tool to roughly get the area of where the alien's pupil would actually be then used the colour black and the "fill" tool to create the pupil.

As shown in the screenshot above, I used the "Gaussian Blur" on the pupil I just created to look more natural and bend well with the iris, after completing this, I exported the file and created a new material for the "eye" to add the new eye texture.

Originally I did expand the "UV" image of the eye as I thought it would not effect the process of adding the texture to the eye but as I went back to put the new texture on the eye, I found out that it is a little too big.

When I noticed this I ended up going back to photoshop and redoing the process without scaling the "UV" layout and it managed to fit perfectly. During this I also noticed the geometry of the body around the bottom of the eye cutting into it, to solve this I pressed "1" on my keyboard to have it in its natural state, hide the cornea geomatry and adjust the area below the eye by using the vertices', I noticed there was a vertices on top of another so I solved this by simply deleting it, I also noticed there was an unnoticed triangle I used the "multi cut" tool to turn the triangle into 2 quadrilaterals side by side.

After this hiccup, I proceeded to colour the body, tongue and teeth with the "aishaderskin" material by changing the colour as well as the roughness and other attributes while looking at the "renderview", I repeated a similar process for both the "clay" demo reel and "wireframe" demo reel with some changes.

For example, for the "clay" demo reel, I hid the cornea's geometry layer and selected a new material for the body, tongue, eyeball and teeth and for the "wireframe" demo reel, I removed the "lighting" set and added a "surface shader" material.

Chosen Model: Gwen Continuation

As I was completely done with the binding process for the "Gwen" model, I moved on to the blending process. At this point I noticed that there were some joints missing, so I repeatedly "unbind" the biped skeleton from the model and add the missing joints until I finally managed to get all of the joints and proceeded to join the biped skeleton to the "Gwen" model by changing the settings from "selected joints" to "joint hierarchy"

The screenshot above shows the many attempts I made throughout the whole process of turning the "Gwen" model into a rig.

The rebinding process and blending process for the possibly took the longest for me as there were many problems. For example, apart from forgetting the joints, when "IK handles" were added to the left leg, not only would the leg rotate from its original position, when raised the leg, foot as well as the knee would twist inwards. It took a lot of attempts to finally figure out what the problem was, firstly I tried to move the "toe" joint and "toe end" with the "move selected joints" tool to the ground so that it is not hovering in the middle of the model's feet and are planted on the ground, once I made this change I tried to add the "IK handle" again it seemed to have made the situation worse as it was rotating even more.

After many, many attempts of trying to figure out the problem, I ended up figuring out the solution which was very minor, the solution for the problem I had was that in the "joints attributes" for the "left calf joint", the "rotation Z" had numbers on it so I decided to turn the current value to zero and the leg was able to correct itself.

I then also encountered another problem with the leg, for example, during the blending process, I saw that I was having a little difficulty with the pelvis area when the either leg rotates on the "Z axis" outwards, it does not look as natural as it should.

With some assistance, the problem ended up being that the joints were placed too low, this problem was solved by the using the "move selected joints" tool as well as locators to move both joints from either side equally.

After these were sorted, the rest of the "IK" joint set journey was smooth sailing. After completing the "IK" joints for both legs I proceeded to move onto the controls for the entire body.

With the controls, as usual I started from the bottom, so the feet controls, knee control, spine controls, neck and head controls I did not run into any problems until I had created both arm and hand controls for the model.

During the process of creating the "spread" function for the fingers, I was working with it without the model's mesh shown and the moment I made the model mesh visible, I saw what was displayed below. To be sure that the other joints on the body were moving and that is when I realised that none of the joints were moving.

With some assistance, I was able to export the arm controls I had created for the model and import them onto a previously saved maya file which was saved at the finishing point of the spine, neck and head controls created, the problem that caused this was that the "skin binding" of the biped skeleton to the model was accidentally deleted.

After I was able to complete adding attributes and editing restrictions for the controls, I finally added the hood to the controls. Firstly, I used the "skin bind" tool and bound the hood to the chest joint, after binding the hood to the chest joint, I used the "lattice" tool as a way to deform the hoodie as it is being rotated. Finally I selected all but the bottom vertices of the lattice of the hoodie and bound them to the head joint then created a group to hide the lattice and now the hood also rotates along with the head.