Art Jam - Session 3

 This week at Meg's Art Jam we were tasked to pick a video game character, a movie/animation character and an action, pose or activity. Once both characters have been selected, fuse them together.

Minor - Character Orphographs

 In preparation for modelling my characters, I've made all 5 orthographs.

Klepto-Man

Robert Banks

Lenny

Benny

Denny

Minor - Animatic & Proposal OGR

Art Jam - Session 2

 This week Meg's Art Jam was a much simpler task and was mostly a chill-out session.

Our task was to create characters out of a bunch of random shapes and blobs.

Minor - Updated Character Designs

 I finally got around to updating each of my characters. I wanted to get these all done before I get to work on my animatic.

I'm reasonably pleased with how these came out. I think I can now get to work on making orthographs. 

Klepto-Man

Robert Banks

Denny

Lenny

Benny

Minor - Epic Man Redesign (Klepto-Man & Script V5)

 So I wasn't super fond of the original name "Epic Man" and have been looking to replace it all summer, I believe I finally got a final name for the character.

Since the final joke in the script portrays the hero as a kleptomaniac, I wanted to play with this for the name as a way of setting up the joke. I've been trying to decide if I prefered "Captain Klepto" or "Klepto-Man". I've currently settled on Klepto-Man as it flows a little better in the script.

Here's some quick sketch work on the redesign. If you remember back to my Epic Man design, you'll notice it's not very different, that's because the classic superhero look is still what I'm going for, I just wanted the design to fit more with someone called Klepto-Man.

All that's really changed is I've added a bandana to cover his face. I'm unsure whether it should replace his hair or not. I also haven't decided if his eyes will have pupils or not.

I still don't know what to do with the symbol on his chest, or if he should even have a symbol.

The main difference in this design will be colour. Epic Man was yellow and orange, warm, friendly colours, whereas with Klepto-Man I want to use light blue and teal, colder, but still quite friendly.

Other than redesigning the character, I've also been working on the script. Moving from script v4a, I've written 5a and 5b.

5a is the exact same as 4a, but "Epic Man" has been replaced with "Klepto-Man".

5b changes some of the dialogue from the narrator in the opening. This is based on my meeting with Tom, where we joked about the city seeing Klepto-Man more as an annoyance than a superhero. I quite like this idea, but I would much like to hear other opinions on this.

If you read these two scripts, please tell me which one you prefer and if there's anything you think needs changing. I'd like any feedback as I would honestly like for version 6 of my script to be my final.

Maya Tutorials - Session 2

We went through three different rigging tutorials this time, so I can't think of a fitting title.

Anyway, as is the norm, lesson started with a 5 minute Moom posing challenge.

Comparing the Moom I posed to the reference, you can see what I've missed out on.

Moom is too rigid, where as the ref's spine is slightly tilted to the side.

I never got around to posing the hands.

I forgot to pose the feet and the knees are a bit too bent, resulting in Moom looking like they've just landed from a jump, rather than going into a jump, like the reference.

At least Moom isn't injured this time.

On to the actual lesson.

Task 1: Curve Driven Squash & Stretch

Starting with the familiar torso of Jetpack Jones.

When rigging JPJ you make a ribbon spine, in this ribbon spine is a specific curve. This curve is used to create a custom node, a curve info node, used to make squash and stretch work with the model. To create this node type "arclen -ch on ribbon_volume_driver_crv" into the MEL command line. Once executed, bring the curve into the node editor.

Here is the node editor with the ribbon curve fully graphed out.

Going back to the ribbon spine, select the three control joints and bring them into the node editor.

Here is everything laid out so far.

Just like the tutorials from last week, three multiply/divide nodes are needed to get this to work. One normaliser, then one for the square root, and then a last one to divide. In the actual lesson, Alan did show us how to change each joint individually, however I can't remember how he did this, so I'm not going to have a very good squash.

But here we have Stretch Pack Jones.

Task 2: No Flip Pole Vector

Back to the half rig from last week, we look at the leg this time.

The leg rig has a separate control for the knee, which is gives more control for animating, but it can be a bit of a pain when trying to do something simple, like walking. 

Delete the knee control and set all the pole vector values to 0.

Bring out the pole vector's X value. Also add a "Twist Ctrl" attribute to the foot control.

Bring the leg IK and the foot control into the node editor, as well as adding a plus/minus/average node. 

Plug the foot control's Twist Ctrl into PMA input 1D[0]. Plug the leg IK's Offset into input 1D[1]. Then take output 1D and plug it into the IK's Twist. Make sure to set the IK's offset to 90 at this stage.

If it all worked, you should now be able to control the knee from the foot control.

Task 3: IK/FK Switch

Starting with this half a torso.

Duplicate from the shoulder joint twice.

Delete the fingers from the duplicates, as we'll only need the shoulder, elbow & wrist joints. Rename each chain (Bind, IK & FK). Individually parent each IK/FK shoulder & elbow to their Bind counterparts. Connect the wrists with point and orient constraints.

Create a locator and place it above the shoulder. Add attribute: L_Arm_IK_FK. This is the switch. Using set driven keys, connect the locator to the IK and FK constraints.

Added IK handle from the IK_shoulder to the IK_wrist.

Added control for the IK

Added pole vector and elbow control for the IK

Added FK controls

Added hand control to the IK

Complete FK controls

Complete IK controls

Minor - Scripts V4a, 4b & 4c

 So for my fourth draft of the script, I have three versions.

4a is the same story from V3, just with a few amendments.

4b is the same but with one of the henchmen removed. I did this to see if the story still worked with less characters. In my opinion it still works, but I don't think it's as funny as it is with all three henchmen.

4c is a small experiment with starting in medias res, with the story then going back to the start in scene 2. I'm not too sure about it and would like some other opinions.

As of uploading this, I've already started V5, which is working from 4a. However this can easily be amended if people think b or c are better. If anyone has anything they'd like to suggest, please let me know.

Art Jam - Session 1

New to this year, tri-weekly art jams.

This week saw the return of an art challenge from first year, Monster Mash.

Starting rules were simple, roll 3 numbers between 0 and 6 and this would determine how many eyes, arms & legs your monster would have.

I rolled:

Eyes: 2

Arms: 0

Legs: 6

Then you had to roll another number between 1 and 7 to get a character role.

I rolled a 4, which was goth.

Once you have you starting numbers, you are tasked with drawing 8 thumbnails for different monster designs.

To run with the goth type style, which I'm not super familiar with, I tried to think of things that are typically associated with the gothic style. Designs 1 & 3 are cthulhu, octopus type things. 2 & 4 are spiders, 4 specifically is shaped like a skull. 5 is dinosaur looking thing, but with spiked armbands, King Bowser was the main inspiration for that one. 6 is a 6 winged bat. 7 is a strange pug looking monster, but with fangs. 8 is based on the vampire squid.

After that, you have to pick 3 monsters you want to take forward onto the next stage, and then you need to roll a new number between 1 and 10 to select a personality type.

I rolled a 2, which was angry.

With this new bit of information, you redraw your 3 chosen monsters with more detail this time.

I decided to continue with monsters 5, 6 & 8. Monster 5, the dinosaur, wasn't originally meant to have sunglasses, but everyone in the session said it looked like it had them, so I ran with it. I also changed its pose to seem more angry. For monster 6, the bat, I just made more detailed. I think I went a bit overboard with the spike bands on monster 8, the squid.

Once you have done that you have one task left: Chose 1 of your monsters to finalise. 

I decided the monster I should finalise would be the bat, because I felt like it was the most gothic out of all of my monster designs.

Maya Tutorials - Squash and Stretch

Final year, no graded toolkit, that however doesn't mean the lessons stop.

In this first session there was three tasks to do, starting with a five minute pose challenge with moom. Unfortunately I was unable to do this challenge due to technical issues, but the situation was sorted as we moved onto the actual lesson.

Part 1: Basic Squash, Stretch & Volume Preservation

Starting with an already rigged toadstool. Geometry layer hidden to show only the skeleton. Using the distance tool to measure the total length of the skeleton coming to 8 units. The locators in from the measure are then to be parented under the controls.

Import all 6 joints in the rig as well as the distance shape into the node editor. From there add 4 extra multiply/divide nodes. The first multi/divide node is used to control the squashing and stretching. Use it to divide the total length by itself to feed back into the joints. To create the volume preservation, the 3 other multi/divide nodes are needed. The first node is the "normaliser", it's used to create a value of 1 by dividing the distance by itself, just like the last multi/divide node. The next node is the square root, this is achieved by updating the output from the normaliser by the power of 0.5. The output from that node should then go into input 2 of the final multi/divide node. This node is to divide the input by 1, resulting in the final number that can be connected into the joint nodes, scale Y & Z.

Normal Toadstool

Squashed Toadstool

Stretched Toadstool

Part 2: Conditional Squash & Stretch

Starting with this pre-made arem, measurement is taken from the shoulder to the wrist. This time the locators are to be constrained rather than parented, this is to prevent a feedback loop.

Only the distance tool shape and the shoulder & elbow joints are imported into the node editor. From here a multi/divide node and a condition node are needed. Connect the distance to the multi/divide input 1X, this will give you the tools length, however it is not the true length of the arm because of a slight bend required for rigging. To get that number add the translate X values of the elbow and wrist together. This total distance should go be written into input 2, then the output X should be connected to "Colour if True R" on the Condition node. The distance should also be connected to the condition node's first term. From ensure that the condition node's first term is the measured distance and its second term is the true distance, once that's in place set the condition node to "Greater than or Equal to". You can then connect the Out Colour R to the Shoulder and Elbow nodes, Scale X.

Normal Arm

Stretched Arm

Retracted Arm (No Squash)