Got some more muscles around the mouth and nose. They teeeechnically do at least half of what they should, but they are clumsy and inaccurate, and I have accepted that this is very much a learning experience. Also, they connect poorly or not at all to one another. But you can kind of make out what the mouth is trying to do… I think?
I bulged out the cornea (jeez that sounds horrible…) and wanted to make some more nightmare fuel. Instead, he(?) just ended up looking adorably excited about something!
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Did some basics on the feet, not going with full toework this time and the anatomy is not great, but basics seem to work. I am noticing some problems with the back muscles, though, so there’ll have to be some adjusting of those old bits!
Thumbs are still missing and fingers are a bit “stiff”, but hands got pretty far today. More importantly, perhaps on a symbolic level, all the old skin is now gone, essentially making this version 6.2!
Got some work down on and around the eyes. I am probably getting close to my ambitions for this version and will soon transcend to sewing up all the geometry into a final version 6 character, and I will leave some parts, especially the face, somewhat limited in detail; version 7 will (hopefully) deal with that! For now, it has some options for facial expressions. I experimented to give an example…
Nose job, and the main thumb muscle, are now a thing. I tried to use nose and adjacent muscles to do a facial expression, but I am not sure it is that effective without skin. Let me know if you get any vibes from this face:
And the thumb muscle just looks like a free-floating blob without the overall hand skin, but here it is, nonetheless:
I will leave the work for a few hours, maybe even until tomorrow, just to let me look at it again with a fresh eye. If I feel okay with it, I will probably shift to version 6.3 and start sewing up and coloring the skin. I’ll let you know…
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Did some adjusting on some muscles, but the limitations are becoming pretty visible. I’ll be doing some fixes, hopefully, as I progress to the next stage, sewing it all up and putting a ‘real’ skin on it. Wish me luck!
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So, I just uploaded the file for public abuse, to help me find serious flaws. If you want to play with it, here is the thread!
Well, I wanted to wait with the next skin model until some responses came in on people abusing the rig to see what it can take, but nobody wanted to play with it. That really saddens me, a lot, but hey, people are people, and it’s a free country (several countries, actually). So I took a break from my movie design programming and cat shelter renovation to start on the next version of character skin. It has that foam and plastic look to it, like a cheap muscle suit, but I accept that it’s just a place to start. Once everything looks kinda nice, I’ll try to anatomy-fit it better. Or not, if the funny look has enough charm to it!
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Still kinda chunky / foam-suit-like, especially when posed at strong angles. But for now, I’ll allow it. Maybe it looks more natual when it gets some luuuv handles on it!
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Did some anatomical corrections and got some loooove handles on them bones. Still looks like a foam muscle suit, and a lot of other things are clearly off, but the goal is just to make this animate properly and get it to look halfway decent. I think I might still manage that.
Oh, and I moved back muscles closer to the spine, which is why the new skin might seem to float away a bit from the old one. The spine is not the middle, I need to remember that…
Some adjustments, and I have now started on the shoulders. Current philosophy is to do the shoulders and some adjacent stuf, then do the buuuutt stuff and kinda ripple outwards from the center mass. Which means I should also get going on the FRONT of that mass, like chest and belly. Oh well, soon enough, soon enough…
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I think this is the last one for today. Unless I get itchy doodle fingers. The shoulder has started causing trouble, which worries me, because half the whole “make fake muscles” effort was to figure out how to solve that problem (another half was the hip joint…). I think it works for now, but I feel some worries, still…
Of course I couldn’t stop fiddling! I lightened the skin to make suface topology better to see in light and shadow, and put some more meat on the… muscles. Yeah. Anyway, it’s kinda okay, but there are more and more little defects and problems cropping up, so I worry. Oh, and I also started on the front. Nothing like spending 30 minutes tuning the groin area. M life is weird. But for now, pictoores:
Oh wow… I did the first touch on the knees and used one of the previous poses to test the results… and the entire hip section just came apart! I’ve been restructuring it for about an hour now and the results are adequate for the moment, but there needs to be a heck of a lot more muscle study done to get this right! That’ll have to wait till version 7, though. For now, I think it’a moving along okay. There are even brief flashes where my brain thinks I am looking at an airbrush painting or a heavily lit magazine snapshot of a human body. Only flashes, but that’s a whole lot more than it has been before!
Edit: The weird inward-belly needs a belly bone to get working properly, and I am waiting to do that till I have the entire stomach front working in all other regards. Just, y’know, don’t worry, I don’t believe that lower abdomens actually bend like that. In healthy people, at least!
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I’ve been doing some work on the actual movie, but I broke off about twenty minutes from some other work to sew up the throat area and add the first indications of a jawline. I am starting to think that the 6.2 model (the pasty white fella with exposed muscles) has some rather incorrect proportions, ‘cause this guy is starting to look a bit warped. Oh well, we’ll do a squish’n’stretch when everything has been assembled. No problem if he’s a bit funky until then, as long as things work!
Edit: I didn’t do the weight paints yet, so no posing in this one. Good ol’ T-pose is whatcha get!
Turns out weight painting the throat was not that hard. Everything is still moving a bit wonky, but it inches closer to something roughly ‘right’:
