I’m new to Blender, well, new to animation in general, and I’ve been playing around with Blender and some online tutorials for the past few weeks. I’ve branched out on my own and am playing around with some dinosaur models and animations. My goal is to create a few characters and make some animated shorts. Any feedback you guys have would be great! I’ve posted my Diplodocus’ walk cycle on youtube (link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qefpQz4F4ts ) and I’m posting a couple photo’s of my Diplodocus and T-REX WIP:
As for the Diplodocus walk cycle: I’m trying to find a way to make the tail more whip-like (right now I am using a wave simulation, and it’s alright but not the effect I want) - if anyone has some suggestions on how I could simulate a whip, or more organic tail movement without individually animating the frames, I’d appreciate that!
It’s looking good, but as some one pointed out in another thread, t-rex’s have a ‘dew claw’ on their forelimbs.
(edit) ah, your first post. welcome to BA!
Thanks for the feedback @modron - I know they aren’t anatomically correct, just going for the broad shapes and textures - also don’t want to crash my computer with relatively minor details. For the animation I want to create, I don’t think those inaccuracies will be greatly noticeable.
Any tips on I proving the tail rigging/simulation?mor improving the texturing (right now I’m basically using the ‘blob’ tool in sculpt…the skin texture is consequently quite rounded in circumference)
Ive looked into the spline IK and this seems like a great method for animation, but I’m curious if there are any simulations I could try that would creat a snake-like or whip like movement?
Any advice / feedback on improvements, much appreciated! One question I do have, when I go into texture mode, I cannot see the bump map in GLSL mode, even though I have it applied in the materials / textures? Any tips to see the bump map while painting, makes it easier to apply a pattern
Here’s a Saurolophus colour scheme I’ve been working on, completed the model, bump map and paint (any feedback); goig to work on a few more species before I get into the rigging. Any feedback is much appreciated!
Any feedback on colouring / texture much appreciated. If anyone can advise me on how to have my bump-map show while texture painting the colour-skins would be helpful, so I can align bumps/colour. Right now, I am baking a bump map from my high-res sculp to a low-res model, then applying that bump map as a normal map. Then, I create a second texture, and UV paint using GLSL mode in texture paint. When I do this, I can see the colours as I paint, but I cannot see the bump map. Any help on this would be great! If there isn’t a way, I thought I could overlay the bump map in Photoshop and paint the specific scales accordingly, but that is time consuming and difficult to see as I go.
Thanks so much! Am trying to get the models done so i can start rigging and playing with muscle/ soft body jiggle.
Yeah, the last one is a real dinosaur, from Mongolia. Long claws are just bizarre evolution I guess.
I Am trying to improve the texturing, and I am having some problems seeing the bump map while I am in glsl mode painting the colours, any inputs on that?
I really like your texturing on these. Seems very realistic, like the sort of colours dinosaurs might have had. I’d jsut add a little more detail (perhaps using textures on the brush) to push them into ever greater realism. Adding some more variation to patches of one colour would help too, as well as little scratches and the suggestion of some scales (but don’t go overboard). Do they have bump/displacement maps? If not, find or make a scale textures and brush it on to create the illusion of tiny scales and ridges. That’s the method I use for my dinos. Keep it up, you’re improving really quickly!
@Benjee10 - Thank you for your feedback. They do have bump displacement maps, but they are to see from afar - on close-up / 3/4 shots they are more noticeable; however when painting in texture mode, I can’t see the bump map, which makes painting the details I’ve sculpted hard (you can see on the Psittacosaurus, I tried to highlight the bump-map by guessing, but they don’t align exactly). I am learning with each dino I make, so once I have all the species done, I’ll probably go back and update/touch up all the paint-work so the level of detail is closer.
You’re dinosaurs are great, and you are really detailed! How many poly’s do you have? I may need some of your help when I get into rigging!
No problem! If you switch to GLSL shading and have a good lighting set up you should be able to see the effects of the bump map while you’re painting - also turn on the ‘texture paint layers manager’ addon so you can change between layers while painting. That’ll slow you down a bit, but t shouldn’t be too bad unless your models are crazy high-poly.
And thanks - most of my models have about 10,000 verts at low-poly and then at least 2 levels of Multiresolution modifier which is sculpted to boost the detail - if you’re not using MultiRes already, it really helps performance-wise (especially when you’re animating), as you can use the low poly version while animating or doing whatever (so there isn’t much lag) and then when you render, it uses all the details you’ve sculpted in. Rigging isn’t really my specialty haha, most of my rigs only work due to blind luck :’)
@Benjee10 - I will try that with the GLSL when I am working on my next model - Oviraptor and Velociraptor - am working on all Mongolian dinosaur species to come up with a short. Hopefully I can get them done shortly and then start rigging and animating.
You’re models are way more dense than mine; I’m sitting at a 4,000 verts on the low-poly’s and using the multi-res to sculpt the details and bake maps to the low-poly’s. My computer is getting archaic and I don’t want to kill it! haha.