iR

New project!

With 2 weeks to go, Rob asked me if I wanted to start a new project... of course I did!

So here he is, wee iR, rigged and ready to go!

KROKODI

Today's progress so far-

• Finished the skeleton
• rigged the arms
• rigged the legs
• rigged the hands
• rigged the feet 

...and I am now half way through rigging the tail. 

Right now, the rig looks like this-

Home for dinner and a wee sleep, then back to work!

FEARG NA MARA

The Kelpie rig is done!

I finished the rig a few nights ago, but I have been putting off writing a blog. So here it is!

I'm not gonna lie- the kelpie's rig has been largely based on the DigitalTutors "rigging quadrupeds" tutorial. Something that really annoys me about resources like DT, is seeing countless versions of the exact same rig. Our studio is a fine example of this- with not many people specialising in rigging, and no one really teaching us anything, DT is the first stop for creating rigs. I fully understand this, but it saddens me that people are generally copying these tutorials step for step, rather than learning from them and attempting to put their own creative spin on things.

I have tried, where possible in this rig, to use a collection of my learning. For the majority of the time, I would watch a bunch of DT videos without working along, and then I would take a break. I would then open up the Kelpie file, and start building from what I had learned. Anything I didn't know how to do, things which I hadn't really "learned" from the videos, I would then use google and my own rigging books to try to find the answers. I have found this method a good way to understand what I'm actually doing, rather than re-hashing someone else's work.

ANYWAY

The kelpie 

The controls are pretty typical. The controls displayed as Box Curves affect the area they encompass- this can be seen in the video at the top of the post. 

The hip control is displayed as a H, and the Joint Control Curves are used to direct the knees and the neck. The star shape is the Global Control.

Many of the controls on this rig have Custom Attributes.

LEGS. The foot controls, for example, contain a foot roll.

SPINE. The controls along the horses spine, and the controls on his neck, contain a 'broken hierarchy' option, displayed as a "Lock" attribute.

This allows the control directly down the chain to either follow or move independently.

Another set of Custom Attributes shown on the Thoracic Control allows for quick and easy animation of the upper body. The kelpie can Sway, Twist and Curl with this control. 

HEAD. The kelpie's head works as a typical control curve, but also contains a custom attribute- Show Facial Controls. When this value is set to 1, controls for use on the Kelpie's eyes, ears and jaw become visible. The ear controls work using attributes, too.

KROKODI

After ceasing production on my own film "Wee Monsters" for various reasons, I have been well received by other production teams who were looking for some help. One of those teams was Krokodi.

The film blog can be found here- http://krokodi.blogspot.co.uk/

For this project I will be rigging the Crocodile character.

I've only been working on this project for a few hours (over the last week), but it now has my full attention. Tonight I built the main skeleton, and I just have a couple of things to work out-

- how to position the clavicle to get most functionality
- how should I rig the spine

- how should I rig the forearm

- how to create "bulge" in chest, for when Croc eats hunter


As the character is a sort of biped/quadruped hybrid, I am having to solve these problems rather creatively. Rather than being "problems" per say, I am enjoying learning through rigging this model. 

Here is the skeleton I have so far- 

I see no reason why anything shouldn't work so far, although I'm sure I'll come across some problems soon enough! So far, everything's going swimmingly and I'm thoroughly enjoying being able to combine elements from my previous rigs.

To do list for tomorrow-

• Rig arms (inc. add forearms)
• Rig spine [have decided to use Pat Imrie's tail tutorial- I'll post a link tomorrow!]
• Rig hands
• Rig foot (inc. foot roll)
• Create controls.

To do list Thursday- 

•  Bind Skin
• Paint skin weights
• Rig face- eyes/lips/eyebrows/cheeks

All going well, I should have this rig back with the Krokodi bosses by the weekend!

Fearg Na Mara

Another film I have been rigging for is Fearg Na Mara, directed by classmate Freya Allan. The piece is mainly 2D, with 3D elements. You can follow it's progress on the blog-  http://kelpiefilmdoj.blogspot.co.uk/

For this project, I am rigging the Kelpie character. The kelpie was designed by Kirsteen Mullay and modelled by Erin Thomson. 

Rigging Mr Kelpie

Keeping up with the good tradition of any model I try to rig, the kelpie has had a few topology problems! The main problem is at the underneaths of his forelegs, where they meet with his torso. Lack of topology at the joint is allowing for limited moveability, with any overstretch of his arm causing a sharp edge of stretchy under-arm skin. 

There's talk of the model being edited and me re-doing the rig, so I've stopped in my tracks for now. Here's what I have!- 

Below are some useful resources I have been using. 

Stupid Kow

During my final year, I have been working on the short animation "Stupid Kow", directed by the one and only Jamie Buchanan.

http://stupidkow.blogspot.co.uk/

For this film, I have been rigging and animating, with my main focus on character performance and facial animation.

The characters I was working with are-


Kow- 



Farmer Dingwall- 

The characters's were designed by Jamie Buchanan.
They were modelled by Karla Zero and Slava Lawson.
Their bodies were rigged by classmate Ben Rogers, and were then passed on to me to rig the faces.

The facial rigs went through several versions as I continued to develop my skills, and as I encountered various difficulties with the models along the way.


Kow

Before beginning Kow's rig, the director pointed me in the direction of his various influences, and we discussed the style of animation he was hoping to create. As the character is very stylised, research into real life cows was very minimal. I looked firstly at other characters who are "humanised" in the way that Kow is. Characters I looked at included-
Looney tunes, Family Guy, Tom and Jerry, Roger Rabbit etc

       

The director had also suggested that he would like the piece to be reminiscent of claymation, so I considered this. I particularly looked at Aardman.

Here are a few blog posts from Jamie which also show useful influences- 

http://stupidkow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/cow-reference-images.html

http://stupidkow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/family-guy-cows.html

http://stupidkow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/barnyard-trailer.html

I worked with the director closely throughout, as he planned out the ways in which Kow would move. We worked hard to realise his intentions in a 3D form, which is a medium he was initially unfamiliar with. 

Rigging. 

When rigging Kow's face, I experienced difficulty with the model. The Kow's face topology wasn't set up in a way which allowed for a good, easy to manipulate skin bind. When these issues were raised with the modeller, I was told there was no time to correct them, so I had to figure out a way to proceed. As the skin around the mouth was buckling and showing hard edges whichever way I attempted to rig it, I hesitantly decided to work with blendshapes on the character's snout. I discussed this with the director, and we agreed that this would be the easiest way to try to create exaggerated expressions as close as possible to what he was looking for. 

Kow's topology.

examples of good topology- human and snouted

**(the two above images do not belong to me and were found using Google image search)

I am of the opinion that the character's range of expressions suffered because of these issues with the model, and the possibilities with a rigged snout with good topology would have been much greater. In this respect, I feel that my own work and what I was able to do was hindered.


Kow rig- mk1

The first rig used CV curves to control a basic joint/cluster set-up in the character's face, and an over-complicated bone structure within the head. The jaw bones were later discarded, as they were unable to work when implementing blendshapes on the snout.

I also designed a custom Control Pad with CV curves (seen on the right of top image), to enable the animator to control the face without touching the initial control curves. 

Kow Rig- mk2

The second rig used a much simpler joint set-up, and worked purely with skin influenced by joints (no clusters, IKs). I wanted to keep it simple as possible, to allow it to be efficient and unbreakable. 

The blend shapes were also set up. 

Kow Rig - Final. 

The final rig was more of an update than a re-do. Controls were added to the Control Pad to control the blendshapes.

These blendshape controls not only control the blendshapes on the snout, but also the "teeth" mesh and the "chest" control. For example, when "Ah" shape is turned on, the "chest" control pulls the geometry on the chest back, to avoid clipping. When the "N" and "Sh" shapes are turned on, teeth appear inside Kow's mouth.

Rig Demos

Wee demo of Sam's and the Kow's rigs. Excuse the water mark!

"Wee Monsters"

So, for my Honours year at DJCAD I've been directing a shot film called "Wee Monsters"

www.djcadmonsters.blogspot.com


Over the course of the first semester, I've been doing various jobs. 

Here's a final progress report- 


The room is starting to take shape, although the textures aren't finished.
Charlie Lodge is working on these, and assures me often that they are almost done.

The characters are modelled.

Girl model by Sarah Rettie

Boy model by Dan McCance

Dan also worked on texturing the little boy, and will be texturing the little Girl next semester.

At this point, the little boy and Girl are rigged. 

On beginning to animate them, I have noticed a few problems. The deformation of the shoulders, neck and bum aren't working correctly. Rather than over-complicate the rig (which will take up too much time on a schedule that is already quite far behind) I'm going to mess around with using blendshapes to add the necessary bulges/creases. 

The mouths are also causing me a bit of grief when trying to achieve some shapes for lip sync. I intend to look over those again this week and make some changes to the set-ups.

On the other side of the tracks, we have the monsters- 

Slava Lawson has been working on Monster 2 (affectionately renamed "Waddles")

The model seems pretty sound, and any rig tests I have tried on him so far have worked well. I plan on rigging the boss head, and using blendshapes to animate the others.

Monster 1 is still a work in progress.

At this point, over the Christmas break, I will be revising the film. After this semester it has become apparent that I have far less of a team than I need, and the current targets, while not impossible, will be a struggle to meet. I am hoping to cut the story down to around a minute and a half, so I can spend enough time learning what I need to learn to complete it to a good standard.