Update 04/04/2020
Today I started (and finished) the Otter character’s texture and materials. All in one day… I personally love the way he turned out, sorta has this cute vibe. But I mean, he is an otter. This is the character I’m voicing so I’m pretty excited to to see him fully rendered with fur and a rig.
Again without fur and with UV seams visible. Once again those things will be covered up with fur once I get there.
A close-up rendered in Eevee
He likes it!
I like the appeal of this one, but now we must move on!
3 Likes
So, this is the character you’re going to be voice acting for? It’s gonna be an interesting sight, my friend. Good luck with that, Blue.
1 Like
04/06/2020
Finished the materials and texture for two more characters, ready to be “furred”. I don’t like to see them without fur, super excited to see how they’ll come out.
Here is the Badger, without his fur… How depressing…
A close-up. Remember, no fur so this is the skin map.
This is him with the fur map overlayed instead. Ayy! He looks like a Badger!
I then worked on the prairie dog model. Their skin is really dark underneath the fur.
Another close-up of this big-eyed fellow. Ahem*…no fur
If he had fur!
Alright just a few more characters to go!
2 Likes
Wee! More character updates! Ain’t that exciting?
Well, it is looking good so far, I really like how the characters is coming out for the episode. I’m getting thrilled already for the episode to be animated in the next couple of weeks once you have the rigs and environments finished.
…How far is it for you to be ready for that, Blue? Still need to finish some final touches for your episode before you begin with the animation? I get that you need them to have full rigs, and doing some expression tests, but I’m just asking if it’s not much for you to answer.
Still, I’m happy you made it this far for such a (big) project. I wish you luck for the rest of your season.
Thanks for keeping up with it! I honestly have no clue on when I will start rigging these characters. It’s on the pipeline to get it done soon, at least after I fur the characters.
04/09/2020
Even though I felt a bit sick these past couple days, I managed to complete two more characters.
Here is the first one. Her name is Snow and she’s the secretary of the Alaskan branch of PM. This is her skin map, but she is normally covered in white fur.
A closer look at her face.
I love the fact that you can edit with lighting in Eevee. You literally can’t do this in 2.79.
This is Eli, Snow’s Boss. He is one of the commanders of PM. His skin map is on the left, and fur map on the right.
A side view of Eli.
And Close-up. I love his green eyes.
Okay, One more character to go till fur!
2 Likes
Very nice. I think you should take it easy if you’re feeling sickness in you, don’t stress too much over your project and feel unmotivated with the episode.
I’d hate to see you that way, you know. Can’t the fur wait until you’re feeling better, Blue? If you’re in much better form, you’ll be able to complete this with more control.
This is me worrying about you. Consider what I am trying to say.
1 Like
04/11/2020
Finally finished all the character texture/materials. This last one was a guinea pig named Eleana. She’s very similar to Eli, being that they are both tricolor guinea pigs.
Now I can start on the fur for these characters. This next step is gonna take me a few days to complete the first character because I need some time to experiment with the new shader. But once I get the first one out, you can expect to see the others right after. See you in a few!
3 Likes
Nice for you to get done modeling and texturing your characters, Blue. We’re inching closer to the next step for the episode, which I’m excited for to see the fully completed characters.
You’ve done a splendid job so far. I hope you’ll keep the pacing for the rest of your episode. May luck watch you.
04/13/2020
I almost forgot my characters had teeth, so I had to make the textures and materials for that as well. It’s probably not the most realistic material out there, but it’ll suffice for my purposes I guess. We never get super close inside of our character’s mouth, so I’m not too worried about it.
Here is the Opossum’s.
A closer up shot for detail.
I did a total of seven pairs of teeth. Here are some of the other characters.
Okay, NOW I can start fur!
2 Likes
Oof. Better not forget the other details, Blue. If there’s any more details left, that is.
You used two full days on texturing your characters’ teeth, right?
04/18/2020
Well, after like 4 days I finished the fur for the first character, including R&D. This is his first iteration which means his look is subject to change throughout the development of the first episode.
I rendered a small turntable animation, which btw took like 12 hours in render time in 2K resolution.
Although I couldn’t upload the full size animation to BA because the file is like 40MB. But I have a smaller GIF below of the same thing.
The full size GIF is on the Project Menagerie Discord Channel. There you can check out the same GIF but in (roughly) 2K resolution.
I want to say that it won’t take me as long for the next character, but I can’t promise anything! But for sure expect it in the next few days.
5 Likes
04/25/2020
Otter C/W. This character has been the biggest pain in my butt in the last week. You would think it would be simple due to the shorter hair but noo… I’ve spent like three days straight tweaking the character’s fur to look right. And after seeing the renders, It looks like it could be tweaked some more… But it’s good for now, I’ll return to tweak it on a later date.
The main issue with this character is the amount of fur. Otter’s have extremely dense and short fur. Me putting short fur on the character requires me to put more particles in order for it to look filled. The first time I rendered this, my GPU almost exploded with about 10GB of VRAM used. After a few days I managed to make it look somewhat believable with only 5GB of use. About 1.1 million hairs.
Here is my result. (BTW the weird seam of fur in his back area has been fixed)
Thanks all, now we slowly but surely move onto the next character.
6 Likes
It looks great, Blue. You’ve surely put a lot of effort into your Otter character. Good luck with the next character!
1 Like
05/03/2020
Another character for ya, this time the badger Toby. This one wasn’t anywhere near as problematic as the previous characters and only took me a few days to complete. Although thanks to video games, I got lazy and didn’t post it here, until now. I’ve already started on the next character so expect that one soon, hopefully.
Here he is, along with some high-res renders, with no post-fx.
5 Likes
Say, Blue. Is PM a novel-to-screen type of project, like how Babylon 5 was when it first came out? Babylon 5 is a sci-fi book-to-screen type series with different characters per season during its initial run back in the ‘90s.
I’m just wondering this, since you had written a book (or did you?) for the animated series, and then this thought came up to me today.
I’m not sure what you’re thinking of doing with Project Menagerie, but it just looks like how Babylon 5 had been, if you’re taking that route with your project in Blender. I just want to know about this, nothing else if it’s not too much to answer.
That was all I wanted to ask. Good day!
No, the series is based off a set of screenplay’s, or scripts I wrote. And those screenplay’s are based off a set lore for creative freedom.
No, sadly. But heck I could write a book on the lore alone lol. The universe itself expands way past PM and goes worldwide. Many opportunities for fans to expand on the universe.
05/14/2020
Real quick, here are the two characters I finished in the past week. The first one, a prairie dog, is the antagonist of the first episode. And the second, a mouse named Snow, is our secretary for the commander. A lot more info will come about these characters when I begin to rig them.
Snow is still subject to change in the upcoming months. So she will continue to be a WIP until then.
Already started on the last two characters, then we can finally move on. I’ve been on fur for a month now lol…
2 Likes
05/15/2020
Finished the two guinea pig characters in record time. Guinea pigs are much easier for me to do because of the previous projects so it comes with no surprise. This officially marks all the main characters finished in terms of FX. Now we can move onto rigging, a more technical process. I’m going hand make a general purpose rig in each character with facial shape keys. To save time, No IK or FK constraints at the moment, just want to be able to pose the characters with the bones themselves. I will update each character with the proper constraints once it comes time for animation, I just want to move onto modeling the other assets, such as weapons and gear!
Okay here’s the first character, Eli, the commander of the PM Alaskan branch.
And this is Eleana, a member of Charlie Squad and Eli’s mate. (Love the way she turned out)
Onto rigging!
3 Likes
Hey Blue, a question I wanted to ask.
How long is the rigging stage of your characters? Over a month has passed. Do you use the time to fully create the rigs for each character? I’m just wondering if you’re spending your time on this, with the armature, constraints, etc.
I’ll be checking in now and then to see if you’re putting an update in the next couple of months for the episode.
That was all.
