I was working on my Mr. Potato Head project, when out of nowhere an idea popped into my head to make a butler. I’ll make a movie of him moving through the house cleaning and everything, complaining to the camera how he’s overworked and underpayed, etc. The idea may not seem so great to anyone else, but it sounds great to me. I’m actually gonna spend some time on this one, rather than work on it for a day and just kinda forget about it. This is the 3rd face I’ve done. Well, it’s not really close to being done yet, so it will be my 3rd face. This time I’m planning ahead w/ the mesh. Before I just figured I’d fix the problems later, but now I’m setting up for everything and making the mesh clean and symmetrical. Here’s what I have so far :
Lookin’ good. I admire your work so far and think this is a great idea. Should prove to be a funny animation. Are you going to do the voicework yourself?
Also, what age range is the butler going to be in? I usually think of butler’s being older. I don’t see any signs of age on your mesh yet, so I’m not sure if you just were making him younger or adding that stuff later.
Yeah it is kinda flat. I didn’t fix that yet. I will after I get the major facial features done. I added some “hair”. That’s it. Not a significant change, but I figured I’d just upload it anyway.
I’ve reworked the mesh a little and added some color…just solid color; I’m still trying to decide if I want that toon look like in my “Toon Me” video, or I want to reach for the stars and go for realism. I don’t know, but I should probably stop posting after every change I make, though. Anyway, here’s an update :
Thanks for pointing that out. I haven’t fixed them yet, though. I haven’t been as fixated on this one project. I made my first game, a three level maze game. But now I’m back on this project. I’ve modeled most of the upper body. There’s still much work to be done, but, slowly but surely, it’s getting there.
I’ve finished the body and the basic walkcycle, so here’s the body…
…and here’s the basic walkcycle
It still needs work…a lot of it.
I have a problem. The armature has almost 50 bones. In the Action window, even when I make it full screen, I can’t see all the bones. Is there a way to scroll up or something? Or at least select the keys an entire column at a time? Help is much needed, comments and crits appreciated.
It’s not much, but it’s a start. This is gonna be like a movie trailer. The continuation of the video here will be him picking up a plate or something off the table, then it will cut to the “butler alarm”, which will flash red light and make sound. Then he’ll spin into an elevator hidden in the wall. The camera will cut to the elevator in the “Butler Cave” where he will step off and dash to the Butlermobile(he’ll mysteriously be wearing a mask as he steps out of the elevator). He’ll reach for the door, say, “Oops, I missed a spot,” pull out a rag and clean the butlermobile, get in and drive away.
Hey lookin good so far! I’ve not tried animation yet with blender, but your walk cycle looks pretty good to me!. Maybe just moving his left forearm to the right a bit when it’s on it’s way forward would give a little bit more swing to his movement. The models pretty good far too, I’ve got my doubts about the lips as well though . Nice work so far.
This is the butlermobile. With Batman, the batmobile kinda resembled…well…it was based on a bat…sort of. In the Batman movies it had those webbed wings and everything. I spent a long time trying to figure out what to base the butlermobile on. Then it struck me like a ton of bricks (not really, at first I was kind of wishywashy, but then I warmed up to the idea)…a sweeper. It would look a little weird having a big upright hoover rolling down the street, so I based my model on a handvac. You probably can’t tell from the angle of the image, but trust me, it is based on a handvac. Sorry the image is so small.
I’m rendering the nearly complete anim right now. Nearly complete in the sense that, as of now, it’s finished, but I’m sure after I watch it I’ll realize I left something out and have to re-render it. Right now it’s rendering at about 30 secs per frame, but I’m sure that number will increase. So I’ll post the video when it’s done. I’m gonna leave it render over night.
The nearly finished video is rendered. As I predicted, I have found numerous flaws that I need to tend to : the butler’s towel looks way too stiff and it kind of cuts into his arm in the beginning. Also(I was going to do this anyway) I need to add in the sound and the titles and all. There’s a lot more. At the end of the video he’s wiping off the butlermobile before he gets in it, then turns to the camera and says, “You can never be too clean, folks!” You can’t tell without sound, though, so I had to tell you that. Take a look at it if you get a chance and tell me what you think about it :
It’s finished. I know it could be better, but I’m happy with it overall. Please give me some feed back so I know how I did. This is the biggest project I’ve ever done in Blender(pathetic, huh?) Here’s the completed video :
I’ve not tried animation yet with blender, but your walk cycle looks pretty good to me!. Maybe just moving his left forearm to the right a bit when it’s on it’s way forward would give a little bit more swing to his movement. The models pretty good far too, I’ve got my doubts about the lips as well though . Nice work so far.
