495 Sprint 2

 To start off, Sprint Two was way livelier then my first sprint, and I got a lot "heavier" work done. We started off kickoff talking about the different creatures that would need to be modeled and get reference videos for, and what was the most important thing that had to get done first. My designer and I decided that our main character, DuckBob, would be the most important since that's what the player will see most. 

    Although my official position on the team is under "Animator" I've also taken up the title of Character Modeler and Rigger since I have the most experience in those fields on our team. To start off the Sprint, I compiled references of Bob, the Trucker our character is actually based off and polymodeled him in Maya. 




The most difficult part I had with the modeling was getting the topology right. I'm more inclined to build up my models in Zbrush then transferring them to Maya to retopologies, but since this was a low-poly model I figured it would be easier to just build it in Maya. The initial blocking stage wasn't hard since I just put the reference photo in a JPG and modeled on top. At the time I didn't worry too much about my edge loops since I just wanted to put focus on building my shapes out as accurate as I could. After a lot of struggling with correct edge-flow surrounding the hands and body, I finally got a low-poly DuckBob that was acceptable as our main character! (Minus a head since the camera is going to be positioned there) 






    Next up on the list; texturing our Trucker. After talking with my designer and producer, we figured DuckBob needed to look like a old hairy man, that also seemed pretty gruffy looking. UV'ing the model didn't take very long since I took extra care to make sure my edgeloops were good enough for rigging in the first place, and that definitely saved me time on this stage. I got the model cut and ready for Substance Painter and went to work. This part was fairly quick since we were putting a old "ps4" filter onto the game which made everything a little fuzzy looking. 



(UV Map)

(Pre-Filter DuckBob texture)


    The last week of the sprint went to the most difficult part. Making the Rig. I ran into a lot of issues making the first rig of this project, but luckily, they were issues I learned from for my next task. For instance, making the bones was simple enough, but making the controllers for the bones was a challenge. I had forgotten that my controllers needed to always be "clean" aka. zeroed out. They weren't. So, when I went and orient and point constrained my controls to the bones, the orientation axis of my controllers were point in every direction except the ones I needed them in. I realized after that I needed to first make sure the orientation of my bones were correct, then that I needed to group my controllers in their separate sections so I could move and "dirty" the group instead of the control itself. 
    The next problem I ran into was making the IK foot controller. I already make all my FK handles for my arms and legs since I found those easiest to make and then made a switch for the foot for the animators connivence.  The issue I ran into was that my IK handle wasn't rotating at all. It moved correctly but everything else was a bust. After a bit of research however, and a few YouTube videos later, I solved it by orient constraining my Knee pointer to the IK Handle and Hip Controller so it would follow along the leg and move the foot.

    

        Next Sprint I'll most likely be repeating this process with a creature, which I'm looking forward to. 


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