Rigging Techniques - Object Exchange

In this tutorial I learned how to animate an object being passed from one hand to another using locators and constraints. This was a really useful tutorial for me to do as I'll need this a lot in my final project.

5 Minute MooM Pose - Week 3

Rigging Techniques - No Flip Pole Vector

Rigging Techniques - Curve Driven Squash and Stretch

Rigging Techniques - Conditional Squash & Stretch

For this tutorial, we learned how to use squash and stretch techniques, like we did with the mushroom tutorial, but we also learned how to make this conditional. This means that when you stretch the leg and arm outwards, the mesh will stretch, but when you move the arm and leg inwards, the mesh bends at the joints and doesn't squash/stretch.

Rigging Techniques - Basic Squash, Stretch and Volume Preservation

Today we learned the basics of squash and stretch and how to apply that to a character rig. We were given a model of a mushroom to experiment with.

Normal Sized Mushroom

Stretched Mushroom

Squashed Mushroom

Five Minute MooM Speed Pose - Week 1

Today we were given five minutes to pose MooM into a pose of our choice. This is the pose I chose to try and replicate.

This is what I managed to achieve in five minutes. I thought it looked okay until I had a proper look at MooM from different angles and discovered that I had accidentally broken his neck. 

So now he's been sent to the MooM graveyard, although I have now resurrected him and fixed his neck and tweaked his pose a little to make the pose look more natural.

Minor - Desk Set Up

I've modelled the lamp and the desk and added to stationary models to it to see what the set might look like. I arranged to stationary according to where they were placed in my animatic, however, I'm not sure I like the composition at the moment. The sketchbook needs to be bigger as it is the focal point of the animation. 

Minor - Stationary Modelling

I've modelled the stationery that will be in my animated short. I used the stationery designs as a rough guide for my models as I didn't feel it was necessary to draw orthographs for simple objects. I haven't modeled the paint/ink brush bristles yet as I wanted to experiment possibly with using nHair simulation. I'm not sure how well that would work, it might be easier to figure out some kind of rig for it instead. I need to find out a way for the bristles to be able to move naturally as they will need to be able to move against the paper of the sketchbook e.g when sketch gets squished by the ink brush. I'll see if I can find any tutorials online that might help me with that as I don't want to waste time trying to figure out nHair when there could be a more effective solution.

Lighting and Rendering - Ambient Occlusion

Jet Pack Jones - Part 5: The Eye

Perspective View

Side View

Front View

Lighting and Rendering - Mesh Lights

In this tutorial, I learned how to create mesh lights. I experimented with using a different colour on some of the ramps on the different orbs. I learned more about ramps and projections and I'm feeling more confident in understanding sampling, although I'm only noticing just now that the top of the image still looks very pixelated, however, the quality is fine on my computer, it only becomes pixilated when I upload it onto here and I'm not sure why.

Finished Render

Colour Experiment

Premise - Main Character Block Model Turnaround

I've created a block model for my main character so I can test out toon shaders and see if I want to animate the main character in 3D or not. The model is very simple at the moment, as are the designs of the main character. I'd like to experiment with the design of the character more and look into making it a little less simple but for now I'll use this model for my 3D tests. I'll also be adding in facial features with animated textures, but this is something I'll also be experimenting with. 

Facial Animation - Added Visemes

In today's class, I cleaned up my jaw bounce animation and added visemes to give the mouth a little more movement. Next week I will be applying the phonemes that I made for my phoneme library to add more character and animation to the lipsync.

Predator Lip Sync - Added Visemes from NoahGeeCG on Vimeo.

Facial Animation - Predator Jaw Bounce with Full Audio Clip

I've finished the jaw bounce animation for next week. It looks like I've got some 'machine gun chatter' in the middle part of the lipsync, which I'll try and tweak in the next Maya session.

Predator Jaw Bounce Animation with Full Audio Clip from NoahGeeCG on Vimeo.

Facial Animation - Predator Lip Sync First Playblast

This week I created a pose library, a great way to store poses to use in the future. I learned that this is very useful when creating lipsync animations. I also started animating a lipsync animation to a sound clip that Alan gave us. I only added a jaw bounce so that next week, I can add the phonemes. Below is what I have so far, but I will carry on adding a jaw bounce to the rest of the sound clip so I can carry on animating next week.

Predator Lip Sync Jaw Bounce from NoahGeeCG on Vimeo.

Pose Library:

Facial Animation - First Playblast

Below is my first attempt at creating some facial animation using a reference. I was wondering why my animation looked so lumpy and I discovered much later on that I had forgotten to change the character set to 'face_A' instead of  'No Character Set'. Slightly frustrating. I'll try to fix this for next week's Maya session.

 
Moom Facial Animation from NoahGeeCG on Vimeo.

Mudbox - Session 5

Today's Mudbox session was a little frustrating as I made a mistake with my UVs again, meaning I had to re-do the model. This is something I really need to work on as it continually causes problems for me. This time I didn't realise that my UVs were overlapping, so I couldn't paint my model properly in Mudbox. Also, Mudbox was being weirdly glitchy today, and not letting me sculpt the leaves properly, and I was constantly needing to smooth the model because when I went to use any sculpting tool on the model, it would flatten out and become pixel-y, so I've just left it as this for now and will probably come back to it later. The last thing I need to do for this mini Mudbox project is to add all the fruit I've modeled to a scene and light it. 

Persimmon Maya Block Model

First Attempt at Painting and Sculpting in Mudbox

Second Attempt at Painting and Sculpting in Mudbox

Jet Pack Jones - Part 4

Mudbox - First Session

In our first Mudbox session, we modeled a bowl, tabletop, and the basic shape of an apple. We did this in Maya and then sent the models to Mudbox where we could sculpt the fruit in more detail.

Block Models in Maya

After setting up the UVs we sent the models to Maya, after sculpting, Simon showed us how to paint textures and colors onto our models. This is what my Apple Model looks like so far.

Current Apple Model