Marmot Feet Problems

I've only done the feet for a Marmot walk cycle so far (sorry for being ill guys) but I think we are going to have problems with the size of the feet and them going into the body of the Marmot:


Also when I just moved the leg back slightly there was this break:

I made the walk quite bouncy, I am going to see tomorrow if keeping him higher off the ground with his torso or rotating it will accommodate the feet, if not we may need to make the legs longer? or reduce his body size?

I don't know how to fix the break though- any ideas Tara?

Man and his Blend Shapes

Hopefully this is the final model of the man- David or Sam need to test the textures or renders on him


And here are his blend shapes:
All of them


Eyebrow positions

Emotions

Mouth Positions

Cheeks

I haven't put them into Maya yet and will do when he is scaled properly tomorrow and I can rename and scale all the heads properly

UPDATE:

I was away from Uni for one of the meetings and unfortunately this model has now been shelved. Apparently the geometry had too many polygons which made him a nightmare for Tara to paint the weights on. Sam made a new model without my knowledge which I am somewhat annoyed about as it was my job responsibilty and I would have been more than able to make a new model rather than starting from Clyms. It has taught me that people will seize any opportunity to take over things if they get the chance, and I did pull together the group to talk about this issue. They have all agreed to make sure everyone knows what is going on and to update the blog regularly, as I feel weeks of work has somewhat been wasted. Thankfully my model can be used for my Artistic Folder.

Mongolian: Adding the Hat

Basic shape:
I can make it bigger and change it however when we meet tomorrow :)



And just experimenting with a furry texture:

Eye Improvement?

My attempt at the beard... I don't really like it though so Dave you may want to do it
I made the clothing a bit 'chunkier' Is this any better?

Oh I then scaled the head to be a bit larger too.

If this is ok I will start on the hat tomorrow and also change the hands.

Head Improvements?

Dave- how are we having his eyes are they like the Marmot's? And also his beard and hat?

UPDATE:

Here I have made some eye sockets and put some example eyes in, what do you reckon?

Comparison between Clym's head and my adjustments:

Man Head Problems

I opened the Mongolian file from Clym but have some problems with his head, in that he does not have any mouth geometry and also I do not know what to do with his eyes.


I have split the head in half to make the mouth go into the mesh, I need this for the blendshapes.

I don't think it split quite in half properly because there are a lot of verts on the head, so I am stitching him up at the moment. I will then take him back to Mudbox over the next few days and weekend to make the blendshapes.

What do you want the eyes to be like is he having eyeballs like the Marmot? And are we using seperate eyelids like the Marmot or am I using the mesh from the head?

Flame Tests

I have been trying to make the fire look more cartoony rather than realistic against our stylised background. For the first one I played with the settings and used the toon shader to make it look like this:

I then realised if I could apply the shader then I could also apply a texture to it. This is just using the scroll texture we had been using for backgrounds:

I have then tried using a flame photograph as a texture to see how it looks. I will continue to attempt different shaders or maybe if David could create a flame texture for me so it looks more drawn that would be good. I do think it will look better though. Also the last one is using Dean's improved chicken and fireplace set up :)

Buster Keaton Reference: Must Watch!

The beginning to this is awesome, I especially like how he rolls down the hill and also climbs into the tree for the boulders to roll underneath him

Charlie Chaplin Research

This scan shows my notes after our group meeting with Mike Smith today. We need to really make the film more comical and create more gags in the piece. As I am the animator for the team, I am going to look into both cartoon styles as well as old fashioned comics like Charlie Chaplin for a sense of timing around a gag and also the type of gags that are part of chase sequences.


The Chase is good, could the man and the marmot be running around in circles around a tree and it comes out with the Marmot behind the man chasing him, like Scooby Doo kinda thing, that would be quite funny.



And for this one could the Marmot throw the stone either at the man or at his hut rather than it just rolling to the side?



Buster Keaton:

Quick Environment Blockout

I did this mega quick using the map that was uploaded in January. Obviously there can be more mountains matte painted in the background etc.

Im not very good at rendering these are just a couple of mega quick tests

Oh and a quick fire test using Dynamics this time, I'm sure it doesn't matter that it is not completely cartoony, although I will play around with it more tomorrow. I managed to take the glow off of it which looks better

Testing Fire and Cloth

One of the things we may use in the environment is cloth, either swaying in the breeze to populate the environment - for example hung up or on the doorway of the Mongolian's Yurt - or for his clothes. The above video is a basic attempt of practicing with cloth to get a feel for the settings, and then I followed this tutorial to make the cloth look as if wind is acting upon it:

Firstly took the cloth:

Then made it a softbody so that it will react to the wind:


I had to paint the softbody weight onto the cloth so that the force acted stronger at the bottom of the cloth. This is due to the cloth being held in place as it would on the Yurt.

Finally I used the expression editor in order to make the movement of the cloth more random rather than it all moving in exactly the same way at the same time, which is more natural.




This cyclinder is to show the positioning of the Yurt:


And here is the result:

Again experimenting with fluids to create fire:

I do not even know if these tests will be used in the final film depending on the direction and simplicity that the group decides to take, but I have found that I enjoy creating these kind of effects and hope that I can pursue it in the future. This would probably stand me in good stead for visual effects work, especially if I can combine it with a compositing package such as After Effects.

Blend Shapes: Marmot Update

Eyebrow shapes:


Expression shapes:
Cheeks puffed and thin:

Ok I had a bit of a problem when I tested them in Maya, because I used only the Marmot's head it said that the whole body could not be deformed by the blend shapes.



So... I had to have two versions of the Marmot, one without the body and one without the head. The blend shapes then worked on the head. And after I just combined the meshes to get one whole body... I just don't know how this will affect the rigging if at all

Marmot Problems

Ok so the Marmot does not have enough verts on it, when I smooth it, it becomes better but they aren't in a round pattern around the mouth.


I tried using curves to influence the face and as you can see there is not enough to make nice shapes...
So I went into Mudbox, which will be able to make the shapes really easily, but it says that there are some faces sharing more than one edge. I think this is where there are a couple of thick lines of verts in the head... I can do the facial shapes pretty easily if this can be sorted by the end of the week please

Photoshoped Pose

Trying to get our scroll style: