mcneeart

[mcneeart]

Rigging Terminology

Joint

Bone

Control

Hierarchy

Parent/Child/Sibling

FK (Forward Kinematics)

IK (Inverse Kinematics)

Blendshape

Constraint

Deformer

Skinning

Ribbons

Gimbal

World vs Local Orientation

Follicles

Rotation Order

Deformation

Cluster

Dual Quaternion

Space Swapping

#rigging

[mcneeart]

UV Layout

~notes here~

#lookdev

[mcneeart]

Hard Surface Topology

~notes here~

#modeling

[mcneeart]

Skinning

Before Bind Skin

Check symmetry

Check topology - ngons, triangles, holes

Are there uvs? (important for follicles)

To bind skin, select all meshes you wish to attach to the rig, then select the skeleton and go to skin > bind skin

Bind Skin Options

Set to default setting

Max influences controls the number of joints that can influence a vertex at a time. This setting can be important for real-time performance.

Paint Weights Options

Interactive weights are best for blending between two joints

Post weights can be good for smoothing multiple weights

Paint Weights Process

Mirror Skin Weights

Influence Association 1: Label - to use this method you need to label the joints in the attribute editor. Label which side the joint is on, then select other for type. Copy the name of the joint and put the name in the other type box minus the L_ or R_ prefix

Influence Association 2: one to one

#rigging

[mcneeart]

File Organization and Conventions

~Notes here~

#rigging

[mcneeart]

Skeleton Setup

Bipeds

For a standard bipedal character, there will be a root, spine, legs, feet, arms, hands, neck, head/face. The character can range from realistic skeleton to heavily stylized and cartoony.

Model Cleanup

It's important to make sure the model is ready before rigging.

Check for symmetry

Check for n-gons and triangles

Rig Setup

Type in "joint" to MEL command line

Arms should be at 45°

Joints that fold in one direction/ik setups should be places on a single plane. All joints must face the next.

Quadrupeds

#rigging

[mcneeart]

Character modeling for my senior film

The secondary character in my film is Fred, and I’ve been in charge of modeling his character. Here’s my workflow and progress so far!

I started out with a simple blockout in zbrush to get his shapes down to match the concept art. I also make sure to double check the black and white silhouette to check that the shape reads.

Next, I focus on getting the main shapes and nailing down the proportions

I sculpted the hand separately based off the mesh I already made for Frankie and changed the shape to match Fred better.

To finish up the sculpt, I dynameshed the face together and finished sculpting the details on the face.

I did retopology in Maya with quadraw. For the rest of the model, I plan on adding details to the pants, improving cuffs on the shirts and pants, and finalizing the shoes.

Here’s the current model turnaround:

https://youtu.be/EhVF2e-0pRA

#myart #mcneeart #fredandfrankiefilm #cgi #3d art #3d character #3d model

[mcneeart]

Character look development WIP for my senior film

Full beauty renders of Frankie:

This is a shader breakdown for the eye textures:

First, I use an add node to blend a handpainted eye texture with an eye shine created by using a circular ramp texture. In the ramp UV node, I can change the location of the eye shine depending on the shot, and even animate it procedurally.

Next I added a soft blue rim by blending an ambient occlusion node with the eye texture. This helps to fake a subsurface scatter and add a bit of color to the eyes.

The final result is plugged in to the base color. The other attributes are left at default except for roughness which is turned up to 1.

Her sweater color was hand painted in substance painter. I used a normal map to create the illusion of a knit pattern and a displacement map to create the sweater seams. With a little roughness and a light sheen map, I got the final result!

For Frankie’s face textures, I created a base color map. I took that map and turned up the saturation to create her sss color map. I also remove a couple of details like her face wrinkles so they aren’t as emphasized.

Her face maps in all their horrifying glory:

I also painted a black and white map for the subsurface weight giving stronger results in areas like the ear and nose

Next, I’m work on finalizing the hair and the textures for her hands and clothes!

#3d model #look development #fredandfrankiefilm #3d character #3d textures #cgi #3d art #myart #mcneeart