[Multi-Layer Cloth Demo Dance]
I tried to upload the video here, but near 30 second animations are too large. Please visit my video on YouTube. Or be generous and explain to me how I can post videos >5mb here. Thank you.
I was retired for 8 years. Then I saw Ian Hubert’s Salad Mug from his Dynamo Dream project. And his mini Blender tutorial demos. And I decided to try Blender. This is my learning project.
I’m Steph Greenberg, Steph G V.2, and I’m a long time “character guy” with previous experience in Maya, MotionBuilder, Max, and other 3D software, and I worked at Disney Imagineering, Rhythm and Hues, Third Floor and on the first Avatar. I bet there’s someone here who knows me from back in the day.
This started out as a complex character rigging project with a complex multi-layer regional traditional outfit (Boiko, Ukraine). I added a background because I couldn’t just have her dancing in space. That would be lazy.
The dance is a Mixamo Samba with hand keyed and modified animation here and there and the last 200 frames fully hand keyed. The outfit is from artist Milionna An from Ukraine, simplified for animation (link to her Artstation page on the video).
The rig is stock Rigify. I love it. It’s ridiculous and over the top and I need every feature. Love the way the auto eye rigging works.
Managing the interaction of these layers was an insane learn while on fire experience. The dance features fast movement that has legs crossing over, counter rotating hips and really strong twisting in the body. Managing the positioning of the ribbons required a lot of manipulation of the physics throughout the entire animation.
I discovered interesting things. Like combining all of the layers into one mesh made close collision detection work better than when the objects were separate.
This is also motion capture imposed on an IK rig with armature bones in different locations on the body from the Mixamo source.
The character Oksana is rendered in cycles. The background is rendered in Eevee.
