DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Poses and Evaluation

After creating the rig I decided to move my character into different positions.

Creating these poses were hard because of the problems I have been having with the rig and paint skin weights. Even without no influence it still created problems when moving the joints. 

Overall creating this model is a really big learning curve for me. I don't normally do well in 3D and I havent really enjoyed it but this project has made me enjoy it more and for what I have produced I am proud. 

After a lot of confusion and problems even to the ever end, I still enjoyed it but found it extremely interesting and even after this model is done I will continue to fix this model and create more in the future. 

I have learnt a lot when it comes to 3D modelling, and I learnt a lot things I need to keep watch on for next time and that is the rigging, the paint skin weights and texturing. 

The rigging I would say is the most important part to start early because I needed to put a lot more time into the rig because of how complex it is to use, and with more time I believe I would be able to create a better model. The paint skin weights were also a problem for me, and I needed more time to be able to create a better and more effective model. 

Overall I have enjoyed this model component.  

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Rigging

The model is complete but now I need to create the rig for the character so I can move it and pose it.

To create a rig I have to press this button.

but the problem is when I click it nothing comes up, I can't create a rig, but I have asked my tutor for help and he has said that we need to bake the mapping onto a low poly mesh.

he told me to export and low res version and then to bake the details on the high res to the low res version.

Here is how you set up the bake making sure how far it look for details and you have to put the low res file and the high res file in the options. 

I also saved it as a JPEG. 

After I created this image I wanted to apply the material on the model and it would get rid of the indents. My tutor informed me that I would want to apply it on the lambert that has my bump map on instead and this fixed my problem.

When creating joints for the rig they would grow in size, which is random but I had to re size it. 

Creating the joints were hard to do to be honest but once I was able to realise that Q cancels what tool I'm using, I then was able to create the rig.

The next challenging part was adjusting the paint weights because the paint weights were effecting the different parts of the model with the each movement. With the value of 0 I can take influence off the certain parts and the value to 1 will give influence. This helps when it comes the movements of my character. 

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Colouring the model

After creating the indentions with a graphics tablet I moved on to having a look with colouring in Mudbox. 
My tutor informed us that every time you start painting you will be told to create paint layer theres a number always make sure its a multiply of 32 and you will be fine to paint with no problems.

Once I created all the indents in the model, I decided to colour the whole model a dark grey colour and then I created another paint layer to colour in the lines of the indents with a nice royal blue colour, originally it was meant to be neon lighting but I didn't know how to do it and I was running out of time.

I then continued to colour in the lines on the model using the paint brush tool and a graphics tablet.

After having this i thought that I wanted the face to stand out, in the original design it was a different texture then the body; so I create another layer and coloured the face black to give it that screen feel.

Once I finished the colouring of the model | had to export the colours into and PSD UV map so it can go on top of a model as a material in maya.

To do this i had to right click the paint layer and click Export channel to PSD.

This is what happened with the PSD file.

This is exactly what I want, so the colouring was all done but once I set it on the model in maya the indents disappeared and thats because I need to export the model in Mudbox and open it in Maya as a completely different way.

 With all the indents there now on my model all I wanted to do is apply the UV map to the model to have all the colours on top and I think this worked really well and made the model really effective.

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Sculpting in Mudbox

Once the model was exported as an .OBJ I was than able to open it in Mudbox.

This is what I saw when I first opened it with a perfect mesh and it looks like a low poly render and I was confused why it was like this until my tutor pointed out that you can add sub diversions by pressing Shift and D together and the more times you press it the more polygons you have and the high the resolution of the model.

After I was able to make the model higher in resolution I then decided to have a little go at the tools and I grabbed the sculpt tool and I couldn't make indents I could only make things come out of the model, until once again my tutor informed me that if you hold the ctrl button it does the opposite of what it does, which makes it so much easier to model. 

I also learnt that the you have an option to mirror what your doing and it can be either X or Y axis; I think this is one of the best features because when designing characters and objects you always have problems creating the same thing on either side of the model. Next to the fantastic mirror option you have strength and size and probably another important one is build up.

Mudbox has a range of different tool that I can work with to get the results that I want.

looking at all the tools available, I think I will only use the sculpt tool or the knife tool to create indents and the scrape tool to shape the parts of the plates on the model.

I decided to have a little look at what the sculpt and the knife tools do to the model itself.

This happened which isn't what I wanted. I want it to be a smooth straight line, we do see that the knife is better for what I want. A big problem that keep re-occurring is that there is a stencil that is automatically turn't on. I also found that using a graphics tablet to sculpt is a very good way to get the pressure right and the right shapes.

using the properties on the knife tool I am able to make it smooth like I want too. Strength is how strong the tool is, size is the size of the tool your using and the build up is the build up in sculpting, it determines how harsh you press and how much it indents. These are the main aspects of that I needed to change to make the right indents.

After messing with all the tools and working out what they do I can now mould the armour on top and partings between the plates.

I created all the indents using the knife tool because it was better to get a smooth finish, I wanted to put the circle indents but I want them to come out, so I held ctrl and clicked and it done the opposite to a knife and create the circle I wanted.

This worked really well I personally think that this works really well with the original design.

This is what I had when I finished moulding the model.

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Exporting

I went to go export my model and put it into Mudbox by exporting the selection as a OBJ, but i had to make sure the I went to window - setting / preferences - plug-in manager, and tick loaded and auto load on the objexport_bundle.

Once I did this, I was able to export it, 

but it kept coming up with problems about the mesh. I need to go through my UV map to make sure that it was not overlapping. I clicked into it and it looked like this.

but I got told my tutor to click the Automatic mapping option under create UVs and then it created this, which solve at a lot of problems that appeared in Mudbox. 

When i imported it into Mudbox it decided to give me red lines on where the problem in the mesh were; even tho in maya it looked fine there was still an invisible problem.

This is what I found on the hands. The edges are not all connected and lined up so using the interactive split tool i was able to connect all the edges together and make it complete, and once I done this and re exported it, it worked fine with no problems.

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Finishing the model

Today I decided that I will continue on the model and finish it today. I had all the body done I just needed to do the head and the neck.

To do the neck I extruded the top of the body, and made sure that its was long enough, and then I will extrude the top of the neck to create the the head.

This is what I was able to get from extruding and moving some of the vertices to create the curve on the back of the head. Once this was done I decided to that I would extrude the faces at the front of the head to create the face, and then moving the vertices and edges into place to form a more realistic shape.

Once I finished this i had to get rid of the special duplication so that I had just one
half of my model. I then mirrored it and made sure all the vertices joined up together right.
I had so deforming in the middle and i believe this is because the vertices were not centered so I deleted one side to make it one half again and grabbed all the vertices pressed
R for the scale tool, held down J and pushed the side in with this it made all the vertices in a straight line, to also make sure i grabbed the vertices again and snapped to the centre part of the grid to make sure its definitly all straight.

I than mirrored once again and it then fitted perfectly, the model was then complete but I now need to texture.

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Modelling the Arms, Hands

Today I continued to model my character and I focused modelling the hands and arms. To do this I decided to extrude from the side and while extrude molding the curves by grabbing the edges and vertices and moving them in or out. 

as you can see in the image one there is a difference in the shoulder and the forearm. The shoulder was started differently and I was only creating it to the model sheet but i wasn't shaping it right. The forearm was different my tutor came over and showed me how to create the arm in a different way. He showed me how to create the arm in perspective view instead of side and front. Modelling the arm in this view was definitely better than side and front, I was able to see it from all views but i still went back to make sure that the arms were the right size.

And as you can see i then gave the palm extra edges using the interactive split tool, and then extruding the faces and molding the fingers with edges going up the fingers to have them thinning at the end. Once I got use to the modelling in the perspective view, I realised that I needed to do that for the hand because I cant just model from the side and front I need to see it all and move around it.

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Modelling the leg 2

Today I am continuing to do the legs.

I started today by adding another edge on the sides of the model, to match the same divisions on each side; the sides all now have two faces. I was told to keep the same about of divisions throughout the model itself, this will give me more to work with and help give me a more round and smoother look.

I have continued to create the legs, I have now created the base for the legs and the feet.

And this is what it looks like smooth shaded. 

After I created this I felt so happy with myself, I feel I am getting better at modelling and using maya in general. Now I have created the legs and the torso I can see my character forming. I found this so much easier than before, because I feel like I know what I'm doing, I'm also not getting frustrated every time I sit down to do this model. I am really enjoying this, I have also liked the idea but now I'm actually enjoying it which also makes this a better way to do it, because I am now putting more effort in to it. The next challenge is the arms.  

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Modelling the leg

I am continuing on my 3D model today, I'm going to tackle making the leg. I'm going to first try extruding the faces from the body.

Well extruding didn't work, at first this is because there was too many hidden extrusion, which created too many vertices over lapping each other.

To understand the problem and to fix it, I went to my tutor for help. He was able to show me what was going wrong and how to solve it. He taught me a quite a few things. He told me that I should try and keep all of my lines on my model straight, so he went over my model and put them straight using a few shortcuts, he selected all the vertices, pressed R to go to the scale tool and then held the J key to snap them all in line. Learning that was very helpful and now I'm making sure that my edges are straight.

To get rid of all the hidden extrudes I had use the vertex faces and wireframe to see all the each faces that have created geometry that isn't needed.

After I got rid of all the extra geometry I then tried to extrude again, this time it didn't become a mess.

Once I created this I then moved the vertices and to match my model sheet itself. Creating the leg this way is a lot easier then creating the leg separate and then attaching it to the body. This way I can have all the edges and vertices in line with each other this will be less confusing for me and the model. 

This is what I had done after adjusting the vertices and faces, to get the other side I created a special duplicate to mirror what I do on one side to the other.  

This is setting of the Special duplication tool, here you can see that I parented one side of the model to the other and with the instance box ticked I will be able to create, move and adjust both sides at the same time, which helps me to see what its looks like, instead of creating one side and than duplicating it and finding out all the mistakes.  

DV2901 A Tuck, Roll and Flex - Restart on model

Today while I was continuing creating my model, I had one of my peers come up to me and asked why I was doing my model that way. I asked him why if there a easier way, and he said yes, he said to me to create the model itself instead of plates and then create textures to make the plates and to give the model detail; I will do this using mudbox or Zbrush to follow the industry pipeline.

For me this idea sounds easier, he was able to explain it to me and to show me what he meant and as soon as I started I felt more comfortable and knew what I was doing.

This is how I decided to approach my model, like I said before I'm finding this a lot easier then before. I like using my model sheet as a refernece and creating my model from scratch feels so much easier and faster then what I was doing before, I was able to obtain this much in less then 30mins, and in turn doing this is making me more comfortable with the software itself.