Problems with rigging, or more to the point, painting.

Ok so after slaving hours upon hours on painting the weights, I have come to the sad conclusion that I will probably not be able to accomplish what I wanted to. The automated rigging system that was suggested for us really did help a lot, and I thank Steve for suggesting it. But I really wish I organized things a little differently in terms of the progress, such as making a low poly model in Maya first THEN going into Mudbox to work on it. This would cause painting the weights to be even easier, so it saddens me I didn't do this.

In light of this I believe it's probably best to just focus on making the model I created even higher in detail, and then fully texturing the model. I also believe it'd be good to just focus on a separate even more detailed version of the head along with this.

I will however still try and give off the illusion that it was created with plasticine, which, with the proper texturing and lighting should work perfectly (I hope!)

Model finished, rigging nearly finished, now it's time to paint the weights!

Ok so I'm currently rigging, and thanks to Steve (our tutor) I have managed to use an automated rigging solution for the character, all it really requires are for the weights to be painted (as can probably tell witht he images). After which the texturing will then be accomplished, and applied to the rig.




After which my animation is probably still on track to being accomplished!

Progress of Wee Eck thus far!

Ok guys, here's an update to the mesh i've been working on for Wee Eck. I'm considering in making a second model so that there is a bit of choice for the character, I will be using one of my previous character design concepts to create another model.

Moom animation tests!

In order to create believable animation for the final short piece, I thought it would be necessary to do a Moom animation test, demonstrating what exactly I'd like Wee Eck to do. Bear in mind that myself and Emma are still coming up with a way to introduce both of our characters, and that this test was only done in basic blocking to ensure I know exactly what poses I'm going to do.



Here's a test I also created not long ago, to demonstrate splined animation.

An inspiring piece of animation

I've seen this for a while, but I felt it would be worth sharing with the world!

The film was made at Gobelins (France), one of the leading colleges for animation.

Model sheet!

I have finally accomplished the model sheet, and now will be ready to start modeling the model in Maya!

After I have achieved this, I will then be taking the model into Mudbox to sort out, and clean up. I must say I'm not looking forward to the rigging, but that's what this project is all about, to learn and progress. Besides, I have the animation to look forward to!

An update!

Wow, finally, an update! As I’m sitting here, listening to music, working on my final model, I felt, why not make a new blog post?

Since I have not yet done so, here are a few of the initial sketches I had created to design Wee Eck. The design has actually come quite a way, and I hope the final model will be represent what I wished to achieve.








I’ll post up what I’ve created in the next few days, and I aim to get the character fully rigged by the end of the week. I'm hoping to start the animation this weekend.