Alright so I’ve decided to put all the skills I have learned over the last three years and create something truly challenging:) I have never taken the leap into rigging and character animation, but I think now is the time. I’ve decided to begin with something difficult enough but not impossible. It is still a working title “So Bored” and the story line is not fully developed but I have enough to say that it will be centered around a young boy who is sooo bored until mayhem comes along:D I’m going for a pixar-ish type style…cartoonish with realism;) if you get what I’m saying! I decided to begin with the young boy…who is inspired by my sone who just turned 1 year old:) My goal was to try to stay with Blender for the entire project but I couldnt get the sculpting result I was looking for so I turned to Sculptris which is also free software so I still feel good about it:yes: I will retopo once I fully complete but here are some quick renders after importing into Blender. I’ve got a little SSS and AO going on but that pretty much it for now. Let me know what you guys think…does it sound like a good idea? And of course there will be lots of nature included, I’ve alwas got to work that in to all my projects so how some where:)
BTW the renders are BI but I will try Cycles but I would really like to have real SSS. Anyone have tips please let me know.
I hear ya Jeannot…its a bit waxy looking:) I’ve got pretty good amount of spec on for skin which I will tone down as I go. As I continue I’ll work the SSS so it fits the scene.
Thanks for the quick view and response:) I’m waiting for your animation btw how is it comming?
Any tips for retopo-ing? It’s funny I did like 4 other versions in Blender using the proper loops for animation on the face and just couldnt get it to look like I wanted. I think I read somewhere in one of your posts you start simalarly in Sculptris or Zbrush and then retopo, am I right?
I hope you dont mind, I may ask you questions along the way if I cant figure them out:)
Made a little progress today:) The hair is temporary for now just to visualize. Also quickly thru a eye texture in there as well. I worked on the face and body more…along with the feet. I plan on having shoes on him so I’m not to worried about the toes. The hands have proven dificult in sculptris so I have decided that they will come when I retopo the mesh in Blender. I think it will be easier that way. I also worked on the skin shader and turned the SSS down a bit and played with the colors as well as reduced the spec.
Anyone have any thoughts? He is a good main character? Thanks for viewing and Happy Blending:)
I got shoes! Right now just using proceedural textures but I will work on some custom ones to give it a little more realism. I think I’m also going to have shoe laces hanging off the sides un tied and see how the cloth simulator or soft bodies works with it. It would be a nice touch:) I’m done sculpting the body and face but still have to retopo and rework the hands.
Does anyone have any suggestions for the clothes…should I give them cloth simulation for the animation or just parent them to the body and apply rigging deformation. I’m assuming cloth sim will add tons of time:( I looking at doing shorts and a T shirt.
Second: I saw something recently where someone was thinking about doing a cloth sim for clothing but knew that it wasn’t going to work very well and was going to eat up a lot of time. So he came up with an interesting solution. He used the cloth sim for the short sleeves on the shirt, and used a mesh-deform modifier driven by the character rig to have the main part of the shirt simply bend with the rest of the body. It was a nice blend between direct animation and cloth simulation.
Let me see if I can find it again, and I’ll post the link here for ya’.
Nice work Derek, some advice though, if you’re going for a Pixar look, their characters eyes are usually very big. If you do a google search for Pixar, and go to images, all of the eyes are too big, but it makes them friendly!
Derek, the process that SFGfx describes is essentially what I did with my Raptorian Hunter entry. I am currently making a DVD tutorial (Maybe downloadable one) on Stylized Humanoid Fantasy Character Creation (Werewolf). Which I will also demonstrate this. Will be sold for very cheap (5-10$ or so). If you have any questions on how to do this, don’t hesitate. However, one thing to keep in mind about cloth in 2.62 is that is wont calculate nor save simulation cache while being linked in another .blend. For that, you have to Append it instead. Its a known bug in 2.62 (according to the blender wiki).
May I also suggest using Particle Hair for the hair, would give much nicer result since you are using SSS on your skin.
I also agree with Ross on Pixar’s big Eyes, but I do like the way you made yours tiny, sort of an opposite of what Pixar does.
I think that you could take these blends right now and make a complete short film out of them that is simply based upon the “look and feel” that you’ve got right now. It has a certain cartoon style that works fine with me.
Please, if I may say, ignore the “bug-eyed Pixar look.” It’s pure visual pastiche, taken from the days of Disney ink-and-paint, to do a character whose eyes are the size of golf balls and as shiny as a marble. I’d say, go with what you’ve got.
And, don’t put more effort into a shot than that shot requires. If a character’s just running from place to place, a good procedural texture of the right color is fast and cheap and good-enuf. Fancy particle hair is great for some shots but textured planes are cheaper. For an ECU shot, yeah, you might add some skin detail or cloth texture or lovely hair or what-have-you … for that shot … knowing also that, once the eye has seen and has taken-in those details on the close-up, we will “see” those same details again later, even though they’re not actually there (as long as we do not spy something that directly contradicts it).
What I’d suggest doing now is to “table” the modeling and start fooling around as soon as possible with some animation ideas, using the “preview OpenGL render” capabilities. Start placing cameras and dreaming of action and start cranking out footage to look at. When you have some idea of how the story’s going to flow and how the action’s going to be blocked out, then you will have a much clearer idea of what visual detail you actually need and where it needs to be.
Great stuff guys I really appreciate the info and feed back.
RossBlenderArt - I know exactly what your talking about with the eyes, however to put my own spin on it I think I’m going to stick with the smaller eyes but I am still going for the overall feel of Pixar. I’m also looking to The Incredibles as inspiration for this little short:)
Jeannot - Always glade to hear you feed back and I will definetly be interested in a DVD tut on the subject matter:) It’s kinda funny because I am talking about doing things I have never even attempted in Blender but as a fan of Blender and what it can do, I have watched many tut’s from David Ward and others specifically on character animation. I find it great to watch things a bit out of my box to get new short cuts and functions of Blender that I will use. In regards to the hair I will most definetly do particles, the current hair is just a stand in. Good to know about the cloth issue, I’m sure I would have run into that way down the line and pulled whats left of my hair out haha!
Sundial - Your right on…I’ve been working the story out and I think I’ve got something clever and fun for all ages. As you indicated I do need to do some preliminary layout and camera placement to get a feel for the environment and additional models that will be needed. Right now I planning on this being the only rigged character for the animation…just to keep it simple as my first animated project of this quality:)
I think I may need to take a bit of a break from modeling and create a little story board so I know what direction I’m going in. It will be good to get it all on paper and out of my head:) Look for an update soon!
OK so I’m working on the story board but got a little side tracked:) Here is an animation test using the cloth sim for the shoe laces. The movement of the shoes is quick and dirty, the main thing I wanted to see is how the laces would act and how long the baking and animation would take. This is also done in cycles btw, 200 samples per frame, about 8 seconds per frame, 200 frames total, took about 30 minutes total. I didnt do anything fancy with the textures on the shoe for this test, but Let me know what ya think:)
Shoelaces look pretty good, but I personally think that they are a little…floppy? Maybe turn the stiffness up a little bit. Of course, this is just my opinion; ignore it if YOU like what you’ve got.
No no thats exactly what I’m looking for from you guys:) I agree…my intent was a much more subtle effect like a chubby shoe lace:). I used the leather preset in the cloth sim. I’ll give the rubber preset a try and adjust it from there or try increasing the stiffness on the leather preset I’m currently using. I’ll also make the laces a bit wider and thicker. Again I appreciate the opinion and any other comments you might have:)
I actually like the shoelace, I think it’s really cool people are talented enough on the community to make things like this. It makes me want to become like you… overnight. It would be a nice talent to have, but it’s too much effort for me. Good luck Derek, also, how long will the animation be?
Well I thank you very much RossBlenderArt but I am far from the Blender head I would like to be:) Everything takes time and definetly some interest! I’m not sure on the total time, currently I’m working on a solid story board. I think that will give me a better idea…I would say though at least 4-5 min but hopfully longer…I do want something with substance:)
Well it been quite a few days without an update and thats mostly because I’ve been trying to work out a great story line. I thought I had something but I decided it just didnt flow well. If you have any thoughts please let me hear them. I’ll at least give you the scene setup as follows:
Kid sitting on a neighborhood street curb/sidewalk completely bored:) There are trees and picked fences and grass around him like any small town neighborhood. And while nothing exciting is going on at all, just another boring typical day, something happens that flips his day upside down:) As always I want it to be clever and funny to all ages!
While trying to work out the story board issues I’ve been working on the main character. He is completely different from where I started, but I decided I wanted something simpler in shape, as this is my first real animation project. I’m still working on the body but the mesh is pretty clean except the hands which have a few triangles:( where the detail of the fingers/palms meet the wrist. I wasnt sure what else to do there. I tried to keep the triangles in the palm and out of the wrist so it deforms as clean as possible.
I’m pretty proud of the retopo work on the head which was originaly modeled with sculptris. I got clean flow lines which should be good for animation. BTW I now love the snap to face tools in Blender so nice!
