January 22 2016

Today was the last day I had to do any final work on my character. Although I didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped. I didn't get to animate, or even finish rigging. This was because I had small problems I didn't think much about, like sometimes I had a triangular face where it should be a square face. The idea is, that you want all the faces to be the same, whether they all be square, or all triangle, as long as they are consistent in shape. And that is my problem. The saying "One small problem can turn into one big problem if not handled correctly" was very true in this situation. Which manes me kind of mad to be totally honest. I could have fixed it if I were wary enough, alas, I was not. Nonetheless, I am still  pretty happy with what I have.

For my final day, I really tried as much as I could to finish as much as I could.

I only got the entire left side controls functioning mostly correctly, but it is a lot of tedious, repetitive work. This was a fun project, but I don't know if I absolutely want to follow a 3D model career. It might be a career choice in the future if all else fails, but I will keep it as a hobby and will hone my skills over time. But I still have plans on creating an indie game of some sort. Which I am excited to get into pre-production now. Which is going to be art drawing, game mechanics, and storyboard pretty much. 

The class was very fun, and I look forward to coming back next year. Thank you for letting me do this. 

January 21 2016

Today, I learned that I still need some custom shapes to do some rigging, and I still and running into problems with the rig. The foot doesn't deform properly, at all.

The foot deforms improperly, and I don't have a clear idea why. The tutorial I am watching di a lot of behind the scenes work, and I can't figure out exactly what he did. So I am just trying to figure it out. 

You can see where I added some custom shapes, above the toes on each foot, is a half circle, that is supposed to be the toe's Roll control. But it still doesn't work properly.  think it is because I need to parent it to another bone, but I don't quite know yet. 

Tomorrow, I will try to fix everything, then animate on my own time so I can try to have it done over the weekend. 

January 19 2016

Today, I basically finished the Rigging of the Character. I just need to do the thumb, and eyes. Then I need to assign the shapes to their respective bones.

For the Hand, I had no idea what to do, so what I did, was just download the completed file, and then just try to make my own rendition of what he made, and that is basically it, just less messy. 

Here you can see all the different shapes, excluding the one for the eyes. All I have to do is make the shape for the eyes, and then just assign each shape to their bones, then animate, then I will be done. 

January 18 2016

Today, I continued rigging some controls. Just by making circles and shaping and placing them.

I have them for Everything except for the Hands, and arms. I still have yet to actually assign their controls. So tomorrow, I will finish this off, and do some for the eyes and assign all the controls. 

January 13 2015

Today, I finished rigging the controls for the hands. I basically did a somewhat similar process as I did for the legs.

So basically, now when I rotate the very base of the finger, all the other bones copy the rotation of it. So it the first bone rotates by .3 Units, then so will the other two. 

All of the middle bones of each finger have that exact modifier list, just with the bone according to the finger it is on. The Third bone of each finger has that too, just excluding the Rotation limitation. So each bone copies the rotation of the one before it, so in this case, the middle bone is copying the rotation of the first bone (in this case, ring1.L.001). And I did that with all the fingers with their corresponding bones. 

Tomorrow, I will rig the hips and eyes. 

And I also tried re installing blender, and it still didn't work to fix my controller issues. 

January 12 2015

Today, I continued with rigging. I thought I was done with creating bones, but I was not. It turns out that I need to so I can simplify the rig controls.

You can see plenty of new bones. They all contribute to the legs movement. The yellow bone there, contains an Inverse Kinematics modifier. It basically means it determines joint parameters that provide a position for the bone itself. 

The foot IK is a second bone over top the original foot bone, it is the first green bone connected to the yellow. So now when I move that bone, it moves the legs while bending the knees, basically making it easy to animate. Then there is a bone for Toe Rolling, and Heel Rolling. Then the two colorless bones in a right angle, is the Foot Roll Control, and Foot Position Control. Unfortunately, I have some sort of bug or something that makes it so I can't use it on this computer. I have considered re-installing blender to see if that helps, but haven't brought myself to do it yet. But I should probably do it soon so I can actually animate the character. 

Tomorrow, I will do this again, but the equivalent version for the hands. 

January 11 2016

Today, I finished weight painting; completely. All I need to do at this point is make controls so it is easier to animate, then I can animate my character mesh.

That is basically the weight distribution on both of the feet, and I also have it on the top with the next bone up, I just didn't want to take a screenshot becauseI didn't thank I would need to.

The foot bends really well, I am happy with these results. They are all bent around the X axis that way It will be easier to make controls and monitor the controls.