Minor Project: Reflective Statement

While I made a lot of progress with my short film over the course of this project, I still think I could have achieved a lot more and there are many things I should have spent more time on. There are bits of concept art that aren't quite finished and other bits of work that aren't ready to show so I missed out on a lot of things I could include in this submission. However the progress I made with the overall scope of the project was good, and I now have a much clearer idea of my project than previously.

With the work done in Maya I found that all processes took me longer than I thought they would, as there was a lot of going back and retrying different parts of it. Again, I should have spent more time and had more urgency with getting it done. I had the full body rig complete but there are issues with the legs. I'm hoping to either find a fix for it or if that's not possible I will likely start from creating the skeleton again or perhaps make some slight alterations to the geometry of the model beforehand. I want to have the characters be rigged well, so animating them won't be so tricky.

I hope to dedicate far more time to the major project, and will try to get onto the animation process as soon as possible, while not sacrificing quality. I also want to create a more interesting art of, and include far more content as there is a lot more that can be added. All of this means I will have to adopt a stricter schedule, as I am lagging behind for this stage of the project.

Minor Project: Body Rig Complete & Head Rig Started

Minor Project - Character Turnaround

Minor Project: Character Colour Renders

Trying out various colours that I think would work with the aiToon shader in arnold. I also added a textured version into the character buildup renders.

Minor Project: Building Concept Art

I played around with perspectives a bit at the end to try get something that looks right, I'm most happy with the last one.

Minor Project: Roof Designs

I decided to go back a couple steps and spend more time thinking about roof designs for the houses. I'm pretty set on the shape of the main structure of the house.

Minor Project: Building Orthos and Design

Minor Project: Corrective Blend Shapes Finished

Hip

 Knee

 Ankle

 Neck

Minor Project: Corrective Blend Shapes for Arms

Minor Project: Pose Editor Issues @Alan

I had a similar issue when using the pose editor on jpj. I start off creating a pose interpolator on frame 1 where all axis are set to 0. I then create a pose on the next keyframe but instead of weighting the new pose as 1 it instead weights it as 0.5. How I got around it with jpj was by using a different deformation order other than automatic, which didn't work in the same way. I'm not sure if it is an issue with my computer or copy of maya as I had the exact same issue before, but my version of maya has been updated to the latest so the issue isn't down to an old version. I wasn't able to make it into uni today but will be in tomorrow to try it on the computers in university, as I have a feeling that may be the problem, but at the moment I can't find any fixes for this issue online.

Minor Project: Improved Concept Art #2

Minor Project: Skinning Adjustments

I've spent a lot of time trying to correct the skinning and think I've got it to a point where I can start using the pose editor. There isn't a whole lot of movement capability of the main body but I think this is fine as it is still capable of having as much movement as I would like out of it.

Minor Project: Improved Concept Art

I noticed a few issues with this bit of concept art and went back to fix them. I think it looks decent now but if anybody has any suggestions for how I could further improve on this, that would be appreciated.

Minor Project: Environment Concept Art rough Thumbnails

I wanted to create at least a couple bits of concept art to show off the environment, but was struggling to find a composition that works, so I tried compositions that are different to what I usually draw. These are very rough and all about just finding a good composition, if anyone has a suggestion on which they think looks best that would be appreciated.

Minor Project: Leg Skin Weights Finished

I think I've got the painted weights as good as I can get for the legs. There are still issues, mainly in the back of the leg which will have to be corrected using the pose editor.

Minor Project: Concept Art

I decided to take one of the shots from the animatic which I thought stood out, and turn it into concept art.

Minor Project: Character Leg Skinning @Alan

I've added weights to the leg for the hip, knee, ankle and foot ball joints. I know for sure I'm going to have to use the pose editor to fix the issues in the back of the leg when bending back as I don't think it is fixable with just the paint weights tool. Another issue I'm unsure about is that the joints orient on different axis despite all going in the same axis relative to the world. I'm not sure if this is a problem from the way in which i created the joints or if it is not an issue at all.
 
Knee Joint:
Bend forward - Y, -20
Bend back - Y, 20

Ankle Joint:
Bend down - X, 20
Bend up - X, -15

Foot Ball Joint:
Bend down - Z, -40
Bend up - Z, 20

Minor Project: Creating A Ribbon Spine and Skeleton for Character

I am still yet to add IK handles to the arms, yet not sure if it is necessary for my skeleton. I also still need to connect up the ribbon spine to the rest of the skeleton which I hope to get completed tomorrow.