I learned most things just by experimenting, testing different ideas and observing what would happen. So generally speaking, I’m self-taught. Of course some things cannot be learned whis way and sometimes you have to look at the internet, but most of my current knowledge consists of what I came up with on my own. But honestly, I don’t know if that’s the best way to learn. On the one hand, I think that because of that I understand some things in a deeper, more intuitive way than if I had simply found a ready-made solution in a tutorial. But on the other hand, the learning process could have been much, much faster if I had used the tutorials.
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that’s is the spirit .Personally, I see that you have gained a lot of experience through practicing. Tutorials provide the basics, but practice is very important. I will reduce the tutorials, and when I get stuck, I will then turn to the internet.I struggle quite a bit with drawing characters compared to when I create objects in Blender
I will prevail
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Oh, interesting. Is this image based on my version of Starfire? Did you draw it, or is this an AI generated image? Because it kinda looks like AI art.
I did it with my own style, just like I can only draw portraits, but now I’m improving to draw a complete body. The result is not satisfying yet
IA version
This is incredible project! a very fine work! congratulations! hope to see more about it!
@Genux10 I see. Good luck, mate!
@Xabier_Abel_Martinez Thank you so much! Well, I know that I’m not posting updates very often. I make the assumption that hardly anyone is interested in every little thing I’ve done or a model that is only half finished. So I usually wait with an update until I am sure that everything I wanted has already been done. This way, regardless of stage of work, whatever I am showing can be critiqued without any misunderstanding of which element is finished and which is just a placeholder. I also cannot hide myself behind the statement that something someone pointed out is not yet finished, so I can only accept the fact that I’ve made a mistake. Damn, I rambled a bit on this for no reason, haha 
Anyway, do you think I should post updates more frequently?
Just be natural as you can! I have the same dilema, but I don’t publish here jajaj so you’re doing so well. I like to see small details and fine work, work and creating requieres a lot of time and love, and you know. So whatever you publish will be okey! Cheers 
I’m still playing around with this light a lot, and I think I’ll rebuild it a bit in general, because I simply don’t like it at all. I keep getting the feeling that “it’s not that”. But time for that will come later, for now I’m making a model of a dancer to get a little bit away from this scene and get the job moving forward. I can deal with the light even at the very end after the animation is done.
So for now the W.I.P. from the dancer model. it shouldn’t take me long to do it, since I’m not making it from scratch, but simply modifying Courtney’s base model. I’m wondering whether to remodel her face or leave it as it is.
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Textures. I’ve been working a bit on this project recently. I’ve roughly rebuilt the scene lighting from scratch - I’ll play with it a little bit more and post an update when it’s done. I even started animation. I’ll come back to these topics, for now here’s textured dancer model. Nothing fancy, since it’s not a new character, but I hope it’s enough for the project.
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It’s time for a regular weekly thread update done once every 3 months, sometimes on special occasions.
I’ve had a bit more time lately, so I started working on animation. The truth is that Courtney already has most of the animation done. I wanted to bring first half to a showable state, although it’s not finished yet. I’ll probably still be tweaking and changing a lot of things, but a fresh eye and some criticism will be very welcome. The second half is still deeply in a W.I.P. state, but there will be time to show it as well. For now, I’m posting what I have. Enjoy.
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Incredibly excited for the final product!!!
She’s one of my favorite Ratchet characters.
How did you handle the facial animation? it’s really good.
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@hopefullyidont1 Oh, thank you so much! Mine too, buddy. She was amazing in RC3. For face I have custom rig based on shape keys. I don’t like the effect based on bones, so I always manually sculpt individual facial expressions for my characters and build rig based on that. And for animation per se - I record my own face and try to recreate similar movements in blender. It helps a lot.
I took a break for a while, because I figured I wouldn’t be able to improve this animation anyway if I couldn’t see the problems. I have to admit that indeed - as I distanced myself away from this animation a bit, I began to notice that it is actually kind of smoothy-slow-weird at times. I fixed some of that movements. At least parts that caught my eye the most. The beginning, when the character descends the “stairs” is re-made from scratch, but honestly I still do not like it. I mean I think it’s still better than before, but it’s still not what I want it to be. Anyway, I still count on your criticism - is it better, worse, still meh? And if there is something to change, what is it? I also numbered the shots for convenience and ease of communication.
I think your animation is really good but i think there is a bit of a sinister element to Courtney in the original video too as well more an vibe of complete self confidence instead. Her Disgust at organic things are less part of her animation and more just a lyrical thing. I also think her entrance in your animation is a little too slow.
Otherwise it’s pretty amazing. I don’t know how much you can change with your mesh but maybe give her a sharper jawline too. Your mesh definitely fits the new style of ratchet games better but it’s just a preference.
Thank you for honest feedback. This is exactly what I want to see.
At this stage, I probably won’t change anything in her appearance, because it could be quite problematic. I made the face more round on purpose, I still like it as it is. What I don’t like and would do differently now is her outfit. Especially the top part. After finishing the model did I come across some cool references and ideas, but now it’s too late for such changes. I’ll leave it as it is, otherwise this project will be stuck in limbo of neverending edits. I have been working on it for far too long anyway.
By “entrance” what do you mean exactly?
Her entrance is about frame_1 to frame_6.
The Model complaints were more of a nitpick anyways, so it doesn’t matter it’s mostly just an issue with animation at this point though this beats what i could animate by a long stretch anyways.
Okay, but I made it before the end of the week. The second half of the animation isn’t fully done yet, but I’ve animated a few new shots, so I’m posting what I have. The current plan is that I will first animate all the shots with Courtney, and then I will go back to the previous ones and fix the issues. So I don’t ignore criticism, I just try to approach work in an orderly way. I have all the above comments in the back of my mind. Of course, feedback is welcome as always.
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I made it to the end. Courtney already has “some” animation throughout the clip. Now I’ll be going back and making adjustments and fixes. Then I’ll be animating the dancers. My current list of issues:
- Frame 6 sucks. Simple as that. It just need to be animated from scratch.
- Frame 8 - something is missing imo. I guess it’s ok as is, but it might be worth experimenting.
- Frame 17 - it would probably be better if she made a gesture with her left hand like she was looking around. It fits the words better.
- Frame 20 - this turn is strange. I need to try to animate it in a more natural way.
- Frame 21 - maybe a little faster and more pronounced movement?
- Frame 46 - I have this slight impression that this finger nodding gesture at the end is somehow out of rhythm. Though maybe it’s my imagination, but still worth checking.
- The physics of the hair definitely needs work. I’ll probably leave this for the very end, but currently this hair is a bit too wild.
- and of course everything that was pointed out in the previous comments.
If anyone has any additional comments, I am always open to criticism.
And I’m back once again. I didn’t manage to improve everything from the previous list, but I wanted to post update before the end of the year, so I gathered what I had so far and I’m posting it here. So this is what the changed this time:
- Frame 6 is entirely animated from scratch. I threw the entire previous sequence out the window and now the girl descends in a slightly different way, at a different pace and rhythm. Somehow, “normal” walking down the steps doesn’t work in my opinion, so I approached it a bit differently.
- Frame 17 - I don’t know if there was a real need for it, but I also animated it from scratch, while editing the gestures.
- Frame 20 - I did this whole rotation from scratch.
- Frame 21 - I was only going to improve the dynamics of the movement, but I also animated it from scratch so as not to be unnecessarily influenced by what was already there.
- Frame 12 - I changed the framing in such a way that, despite the cut, it will be directly connected to Frame 13.
Well, now when I read it, all the shots I wanted to edit edited, I simply animated from scratch. It’s not for me to judge whether it’s good or bad - I just hope that in general these changes are at least slightly positive. And of the things I still haven’t done, but I still I want to:
- Frame 8 - something is still missing.
- Frame 19 - I think that something is wrong at the end of this finger-wiggling gesture.
- Frame 46 - I still have the impression that she is slightly out of rhythm.
- some cuts still need to be changed, I just haven’t done it yet.
- physics is still the same. I’ll working on it later.
Of course, any feedback always welcome.
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And here I am, the first post since the new year. For now, I decided that these fixes will go to the “backlog”, and currently I will focus on doing something that has to be done anyway - animating the dancers. I’ll get back to Courtney animation when I make the dancers. That way I feel the job is moving forward for me and not just standing in place doing the same thing over and over again.
And as for the dancers themselves:
- I made their first pass of animation (for now only in the first few shots as you can see below)
- I don’t really like their rotation in Frame 5
- I don’t like the descent from the platform in Frame 6 either
- framing in Frame 10 definitely needs to be done differently, but I don’t have an idea yet
- not a big thing, but in Frame 14 they enter the frame a bit at the end and the animation wasn’t prepared for it, so it needs to be fixed
- I’m ignoring physics on dancers for now, I’ll come back to it later
- speakers are now animated, yay
I guess that’s it for my own feedback.
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Wow! This looks really great! Do you have plans to release or sell the models?
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