no upload!

apparantly my video wont upload.....tried leaving it over night but was in the same situation i left it in when i went to sleep so no luck on the upload.....poo poo :(

walk cycle

finished walk cycle

here's the finished walk cycle of my character. I know I can do so much better than this for a walk cycle but time constraints meant that I could only do a basic walk cycle with a little fiddle about with the graph editor. Im happy with it though because the character moves well and is easy enough to animate.

Overall, I am happy with the character that I have produced. I am particularly proud of the modelling which I think has turned out well. I am also happy that I have yet again learnt things that are new to me, mainly in terms of rigging. At the start of term, I had no idea where to start, I didnt know anything about weight painting, set driven keys and only had a basic understanding of IK handles and building a skeleton. I think that what I have done demonstrates progress of learning from last term and I can take this further into the third term.

If I was to repeat the project again, I would aim to get the modelling done a little quicker, now that I have built up alot of confidence in the modelling I do and I would concentrate my efforts on rigging. I attempted to go deeper into the rigging process by adding blend shapes and facial rigging but I got totally lost and decided to just go with the IK handles in the arms and the set driven keys in the hands and feet as this was sufficient enough for me to produce a walk cycle, which was my intention from the project outset.

At the start of the term, I was quite motivated to get going with the project and the character building process, but when it came to the later stages and the rigging stage got closer to me, I found it hard to get motivated to do the rigging process. Rigging is something that does not particularly interest me although I am willing to expand my knowledge of the process as it is handy to know how to do it. Knowing how to do a variety of areas rather than just one specialist area is better for a person as they will be more emplyable and of more help to other people.

leg blast

This is the final test play that I have done. It is a test of an Ik handle i put on the leg. The weights could have been a little better but theyre not totally bad, and I'm happy with it

arm blast

this is the second play test for the left arm. It was the first painted weight that I attempted on a joint and I am happy with the result. Yes, Its not perfect but not a bad first attempt at all i'd say

hand blast

Heres and example animated hand. For some reason the playblast wasnt working properly on maya so i just did a small batch render to show my progress. I put some set driven keys in the hands and feet. I thought that this would be complicated at first, but Dave showed me how to set the driver keys up and it was pretty straight forward.

Set driven keys are so much easier for animating rather than having to key each joint in the finger for every key frame.

painting weights

At first I found it confusing to understand how to paint the weights on a model. It was more trial and error before i understood how they worked and saving progress and going back to saved data when i made a mistake. Basicly the solid white shaded areas remain solid when a joint moves and the lighter areas are less influenced by the joint. The black areas are not influenced by the joint at all. The above images are examples of some of the joints that have painted weights

not posted for a while.....oops!

just a quickie......Dave showed me an online tutorial for character rigging. Im gonna give it a bash, progress will be uploaded soon :D

working out the body parts

This final concept I sketched simply to work out how the body parts will look when it came to modelling and how some of them will be posed.

The concepts Ive done, however few there is, are not too far from my finished model but it gives an idea of where my character came from and how i got there.

body concept

I had it in my mind from the outset that i wanted a muscular look to my character. To figure this out i sketched a few body poses to work out a shape. Even though the sketches at the bottom are quite naff, its two quite common stances for a gorilla. The sketch at the top is the look i went for, having quite a top heavy feel to the character. To balance this out I've given my character larger hands and feet (as you can see from the posts of my model) to give a sense of stability whereas in reality a top heavy clay model will just topple over.

bit of concept

It wasnt really a goal of mine to concentrate on the concept as I just wanted to model texture and rigg. But a little concept needed to be done as i needed some idea for how i wanted my character to look. Its a key stepping stone which had to be done. I actually did these ages ago back at the start of term but have only just uploaded them.

completed model.....yay!!

finally after blood, sweat and tears I have a completed and textured model. Taken a bit longer than I had wanted but I didnt want to rush it and still 2 weeks left to rigg which should work out ok. Aim for this week is to complete a skeleton for the model and then paint the weights next week and put it through a walk cycle to demonstrate my awesome rigging skills......jokes haha.

But im happy with progress so far on the model i think its turned out good and my modelling has certainly improved more since last term. only dissappointment is the head. Im happy with the face but the head looks like a giant blob. But hey its meant to be a clay model and I suppose its an excuse to have a blob for a head.....ho hum........lets rigg! :/

Cool eh?....

found a useful link to creating an eyeball texture. Looks hard and complicated but its really really simple. I think it looks very effective and wicked. Left a link in my maya tutorials links list if anyone fancies giving it a try or using it themself

glass texture

As i created a glass texture for my glasses i thought it would be helpful to post the link to the tutorial on my blog

glass texture

As i created a glass texture for my glasses i thought it would be helpful to post the link to the tutorial on my blog

gorilla first mirror

as a test preview i decided to mirror my model to get an idea and see how the whole model looks. I am very happy with what I have done which was to create a gorilla model. It looks like a gorilla and able to support itself as it is supposed to be made of clay. Its taken a great deal of pressure off me and relief more than anything to finally finish the body model. I didnt want to rush my model and i feel confident that i made the right choice. My confidence in modelling has increased after this. Just the head left to do now then the rigging can begin :S

attaching the hand

i then imported the hand into my body model and attached it. I needed to add more verts to the forearm to allow a good connection of the hand. I also had to tweak the verts on the forearm to fit the shape and size of the hand but i got there eventually and this is my result.

as a quick adjustment i slightly enlarged the forearm which i think now looks spot on. All thats left to do now is the head.

final tweaks to the body

after attaching the foot to the leg i tweaked the verts on the calf to be more built up to accomodate for the big feet.

the leg

spent an hour this afternoon modelling a leg. It was a quick model just tweaking some verts and adding edge loops and this is my result. still need to connect the leg with the torso then add the hands and feet. So far so good XD

banana glasses

spent this morning and part of the afternoon modelling some glasses for my character. Instead of usual specsaver glasses i thought i'd go for something to do with a gorilla. I decided to model a banana and make some glasses out of it. It was purely off the top of my head and this is my result. Im happy with them and i will use them. Only troubles with it was creating the glass texture but it was ok in the end

making the foot

the above image is the early stage of my modelling of the foot. I took the same construction method that i used for my hand but instead of extruding the thumb out at an angle, i did it to the side. I think this is more realistic for a gorilla's foot and the below image is the model near completion.

Research for glasses

In my ideas I have decided that it would be a good touch to include some glasses on my character as this is a stereotypical symbol that identifies intelligence. There are different types of glasses to choose from but i feel that half moon glasses would suit my character best because i feel that it lets you give more facial expression to the character for example he can look over the glasses without moving them demonstrating a serious look.

getting some muscle

after a few tweaks from the last image post ive got an arm that looks like this. Im happy with it for now but i may tweak it again later.

now for the fore arm structure :S

body building

this is progress so far on the torso and initial work on the arm. Its been a bit tricky getting it to the point where it is at now and its tricky working out the shape of the arm but ill get there eventually. ill probably still need to tweak some verts to make the model look better but well see. I quite like how the arm is taking shape. I wanted to go for the muscular look and i think it is coming along well

modelling my gorilla hand

the images above show my progression through modelling a hand in maya. I found a useful tutorial online which i have posted a link to which walked me through the process. I got upto stage 4 but from there on i carried on modelling myself as it was mainly tweaking verts and scaling. Approximately i spent between an hour or two on this model as i was mainly learning new techniques such as adding nails. I thought this would be a good starting point for my model as it requires less design but more shape. I still have to finalise the design of the head and body for my model which i will complete in the next few days

hand modelling link

Ive found a useful modelling tutorial online. Ive added it on my blog as a link under maya tutorials. Im in the process of using this myself and its looking good so far. Ill upload progress soon

new gorilla ideas inspiration

this is more of inspiration for the body shape of my character. i like the simple muscular structure. I also like the proportion of the body features such as large hands work well and would suit my character.

gorilla face test modelling

After doing a few quick sketches (which i will upload later) I decided to do a quick test mock up of one of my favourite ideas. I really like the squarish look to the face with the big jaw but its only early yet so it could change. Ill probably do some more ideas first before i commit to maya

gorilla research

I thought a good reference for the body of the gorilla would be king kong. This is because he has a very muscular figure and at the same time the creature has some intelligence

The character that first came to mind when designing my ape was based on the Ape character from george of the jungle. This is the perfect character to base my ideas on becuase in the film he is the most intelligent out of all the characters.

Early doors

Been set the brief this week. Have my mind set on two of the briefs given to us which are the game environment and the character design.

After having a think about which one to chose I am more inclined to the character brief. Simply because we did an environment project last term and so i would like to try something new this term. Character modelling and rigging is something i have not had a proper crack at yet and so i would like to give it a try. it will also add some variety to my showreel at the end of the year and will demonstrate the skills i have learnt throughout the year.

I would very much like to work in a group with people who are thinking of doing the same project so ill have to ask around. If not i will give it a try on my own but preferably a group.