Week 8

Halfway through the semester. So I went about trying to fix a little IK problem I found with my helper IKs. I noticed that two of my IK handles in the front legs had mysteriously disappeared at some point. So I went in and added them in as I was making the Helpers for the front legs.

I was not sure what was going on, but I was able to fix it despite taking several hours to figure out the situation and as to why everything was acting funky. Because the bottom of a giraffe's foot is so different in it's build (I blame the foot being off the ground) It makes determining where IK handles go a little difficult. But at last, I've fixed them. Al be it with a little awkwardness. But nothing a little pole vector constraint won't fix. Sadly the stretch controls are not all working properly, so I'll have to fix that this weekend.





So I've been beating up this giraffe in my mind and my peer Cameron is wishing for his rigged zebra. So next week, I am returning to it and essentially copying all of these controls over to it.

Week 7

Week 7 was a little bit of a hassle because I ran into a interesting problem that I personally caused myself. Before I get there, I went in and parented all of the controls in the appropriate order in the outliner. Everything flows now.

Now my problem occurred when I started playing with the IKs in the legs. I decided to put in a helper IK system as I was taught to when I first learned how to rig, but then I went and decided to play around with the IK settings and all hell broke loose. Even the helper was practically destroyed and I was freaking out as to where I needed to even begin on fixing it. I first went and put all the settings I played with back to their original setting, but low and behold, that didn't work. So now I had to figure out how to fix this properly. I went in and broke the leg system appart, took down all connections, deleted joints that were not mirroring the other side, and even deleted a few IKs. It took me a few hours to fix, but I was able to get it working again in it's original state before I messed with the controls.

Because the giraffe's leg is so long and it's knee starts so high up, simply lifting the foot control causes the knee to extend instead of bend, so a flex control was necessary to counteract this little flaw. But it works and looks fine, just requires an additional control. At this point, all 4 legs have helper IKs and flex controls. I wanted to get around to the stretchy back and legs, but it's been a very busy week. ("Life finds a way" - Ian Malcom)

Week 6

Alright, another week and more work to be done. This week I went and put in controls, ik splines, and cluster controls for the neck, back, and tail. Not really much to say here that is analytical or different from the Zebra. So I will just Present the pictures. Although, I do have to say, I noticed that I had attached the ear joints to the first neck joint, so I fixed that.

Next week I will move onto what stumped me last semester on the wooly mammoth. The stretchy legs and stretchy back, and I will perfect it until I get it down pat. I will also go back and continue retopologizing the giraffe's eyes, because I'm going to need those to be good enough for blend shapes.

Week 5

Last week was a major set back in terms of re-mapping topology. My frustrations are justified, I spent 8 hours retopologizing, an hour putting in the skeleton as well as orienting it and giving it ik handles. But, I have to move on, and to give myself a break, I began to work on the giraffe.

Retopologizing this one wasnt as bad as the crocodile was, but it still took time despite what I started with.

But, after many hours, my efforts are fortuitous.











However, there is a point where I just have to move on, such as the head here. I got really frustrated in this area, but this is not the worse of it. Now, I get it; downloading models can come at a cost. Some aren't ready for animation. Some are made of nothing but tris with no quad pattern to go back on. But I do have one question...

WHO USES SPIRALS FOR LEGS?!

I'm not even aware that that is even a technique! I've asked several peers if they have even seen this before, and a few of them say this is the result of using zbrush' zremesher. But I never used zbrush on this specific model yet, and just by looking at the flow of that spiral, I'm betting this is how it was made.

 Moving on, I went in and created the skeleton. Now, for a short necked animal or a character, you would probably need only a few joints, if not only one. But a giraffe has such a long neck, you're gonna need more. Now, to be more realistic, I went in and gave it 7 joints, one representing each vertebrae in a giraffe's neck.

 Now I downloaded this model and it came with a tongue. Normally I would have deleted it and moved on, but after thinking about it, a giraffe is also well known for it's very prehensile and long tongue. So I went ahead and gave it a few joints as well.





Last I put in the IK handles for the legs. Basically the same setup as the zebra, just longer. Next week I'll be putting in the controls for the giraffe and also going back to the zebra to shorten the tail, use some blend shapes for the stomach and mouth, as well as add in the IK splines for the neck, back, and tail.

 

Week 4 (Disaster!)

Ugh, so this week I had experimented further with the quadraw function in maya on the crocodile. It was not really getting me anywhere so I decided to try and figure out a technique my peer had taught me last week. That didn't work either. So I decided to just go in and manually delete and create edges to retopologize the mesh.

After awhile, I finally had it all finished and it looked much better than it did before. Sure there were a few tris, but there were no six poles, no ngons, and there was an edgeloop that cut the whole model in half. It was good enough for my purposes. I saved the file the night before presentations and went to bed. I woke up the next morning with the intention to make some screen grabs at the lab.

I get inside and I open up my file on my flash drive, only to get an Error Line 0, File unreadable. The file on my flashdrive was corrupt. No biggy, so I wont have pictures for my presentation. I can still go to my backup at home, work on the model some more, finish the skeleton that was basically done (just needed to be mirrored) and take screen grabs for this post, like I do every week.

I get home, and pull up my programs and open up the backup. Error Line 0, File Unreadable. My backup was corrupt as well. I scoured the internet for solutions and found that there IS still data on the file, but because I cannot read MEL, I can't tell what is good data and bad data, or whether my model, at the least, was salvageable. Sadly, I have nothing to show for my work this week, and I've essentially lost a solid 8 hours of work.

I'm bummed, yes, because I not only have nothing to post for my week of effort, but also because it's all gone. But, it's not a complete loss. I redownloaded the model (along with ALL of it's initial topology flaws) and will just slowly retopologize while working on everything else. I just wish I had something to show for this week.

Other than that, I took some advice from my critiques and added IK handles to the zebra from it's heels to it's toes as well as shortened it's tail.

Next week, moving onto the Giraffe is a must, because I need to move onto a different animal temporarily.

Week 3

I have found a method in where I can create a completely new mesh for the models that need it where I make the model active, create a new object with numerous polies, and then wrap that around the active model. It's not perfect so I still have to work on it.

My main focus though is that the zebra is mostly rigged at this point with constraints, ik handles, and controllers. Still needs some fine tuning though and add some special attributes I thought of (though I hardly think they're original)

For the legs I currently have a dual IK system in place. I'm thinking of adding a third for the feet, but I'm unsure if that is practical at this point.

I have also moved the toe joints back towards the heel, but I may place that more towards the center. Hooves are not easy to think about since they are so hard and dense, allowing NO movement.

I also came up with a little breathing control for the stomach. It's not perfected yet because I'm going to have to figure out how many of the stomach joints it is going to affect and where the pivot will be.







So as I was going in and constraining everything, I ran into a problem when it came to orient constraints. The joint would fly out at a 90 degree angle every time. I even went back and researched it to see if I was doing anything wrong with no avail. And then I looked at the maintain offset box. It was unchecked. This is what I get when I change computers and install maya 2016, everything is reset.

 

I've gone in and added some FK controls for the tail, but that doesn't mean there won't be IK splines there. I just haven't added them yet.

Last is I have added some clavicle and shoulder controls. I'm aiming for these animals to be as detailed as possible.

Next week I will be perfecting the remesh process of the crocodile and the lion, but mainly just working some more on the zebra rig as well as giving the giraffe a skeleton.

Week 2

This week I tried to hammer out some more of the geometry for the crocodile and the lion, but it's a slow process. Fortunately, I got some advice on using Mayas quadrawl or Z-Brush's remesh tool, which will definately speed up the process. But until then, I have focused on starting the rigging process on one of the models which is for certain, ready.

 

The Zebra is an interesting skeleton for a few reasons. One being, as said earlier, the jowl is far away from the jaw joint of the head.

 Second, the zebras leg, like most ungulates, is very different from how it is laid out, but still the same in how many joint sections it has. Like every mammal, it has a clavicle, a shoulder, an elbow, a wrist, a palm, and fingers. It also has a hip, a knee, an ankle, a heel, and toes.

This project has a secondary goal that is more personal. Last time I rigged a quadruped, I did really well, but had numerous issues in very important areas such as the legs and the stomach. I am now addressing the issue with the stomach here:

What happened last time was that when the quadrupeds legs moved, its stomach sort of wrinkled and has a noisy effect on the polygons nearby. I realize now that the issue was because this section of the body needs its own end joints in order to curve and flex properly without that distortion. This way, the polys will be weight mapped to these end joints, which will be affected by how the spine bends, just like most animals.

Next week I will work on the poly layout of the croc and lion in the lab since Z-brush is SUPER expensive. I will also add controls to the zebra and start constraining them as well.