December 18 2015

Today, I kind of took a break. I did open up my blender and do a tiny bit of weight painting, but nothing much really. I just fixed some weights in certain areas. They don't look much different though because it is usually only by a few vertices. So now the waist moves a bit better with the rest of everything else. I put the project in my dropbox so maybe I can work on it a bit at home. but I don't know if I will or not yet.

December 17 2015

Today, I finished all the weight painting for the hands. And frankly, I think it looks really good!

Although the thumb isn't twisted nearly as much as I want it to be, I am sure it is a simple fix. Because I won't be actually changing the polygons, I don't think I will have any problems with the UV Map (at least i sure hope I don't)

Tomorrow, I will continue weight painting. And if I finish, I might take a small break because of how tedious and tiring this actually is.

After my break for the rest of the class, I will then take the animating by storm and finish it as soon as possible. 

If I finish animating in nice timing, I might just start a new project. Maybe figure out how to get it into Unity on my own as well as Emanuel.

December 16 2015

Today, I continued work on the weight painting. I basically finished the hands, I just need to finish the other hand.

In those two pictures, you can see where I have my weight painting done. So now each finger moves with the the hand, and I actually like the results I ended up with. They move pretty well. (but I only screenshotted the one finger because that is all I had done when I finished took the screen shot)

Tomorrow, I will strive towards finishing weight painting and start animating my character maybe this week. 

December 14 2015

I forgot to post this day, so I am posting it on Wednesday, because I wasn't here Tuesday.

Today I continued with my weight painting .Most of the weight painting is done. I am done down to the Root Bone.

In the next picture, you can see that each spine bone can move on their own now. All I have to do now is just finish the legs, then the hands. Then I am officially done rigging the model and can start Animating.

That is what I will be doing on Wednesday) 

December 11 2015

Today, I started weighting the character mesh where the armature will affect it. So when I move each individual bone, its corresponding assignment on the character mesh will move along with it.

The different colours represent the amount of weight on the mesh that applies to the bone. So the red is at 100%, yellow is 75%, and the green is just 50% and blue is 0%. You want to vary the amount of weight on the body that way it moves like a real body would. that was the whole point of modeling the character anatomically correct to the muscles in a human body. to assign weight, you must go into edit mode on the mesh with the armature in pose mode. Then select a bone, then select the vertices you want to be affected by the armature, then enter how much weight you want there to be, and then click assign and voila, you have made weight and the body part will now move.

I did it completely on the head, but not all over the arm so this next screenshot is of the head in a different position than normal.

I also just made it so I can't see the subdivision surface modifier for now that way it doesn't lag when i navigate the 3D viewport. 

Tomorrow, I will continue working on the weight painting of the character. Once I am done that, I can move onto animating.

December 10 2015

Today, I finished the armature for the model.

I just did it as if I were modeling the character itself, using the extrude function as my tool of use. Making the armature, I named everything as I went so it was easier to navigate. I also had to keep track of which way each bone was oriented in, because I want each bone to rotate in the x axis, I have to make sure each bone is rolled appropriately. Then, I had to make a hierarchy system of bones. Which means I have to make bones parented to other bones. that way, they are connected. In places like the hand, that is where it would be used most.

All those dotted lines signify which bones are parented to which. so all the bases of all the bones are parented to the end of the hand bone. That means when I rotate the hand bone, all the finger bones rotate with it.

I only made bones on one side of the model because I could just mirror the armature, names too. It is a really cool function that blender has. So, if I name a finger bone "index1.L" if I duplicate it with [Shift+D] then do [Ctrl+M] then just hit the [X] key, to mirror in the x axis, (all while the origin is in the center of the grid with the 3D Cursor) the bones would all be mirrored. But, with all those bones selected, and I hit the [W] key that comes up with special menu, and I select name mirror, it would switch from "index1.L.001" to "index1.R" and that is really helpful.

Now, the reason why orienting the bones are important, is so you can rotate them properly. So I wanted it to rotate in the X-Axis, just like a hand would. So if you don't orient the bones properly, they wouldn't rotate properly like so:

As you can see, all the bones are rotated as they would in a real life hand. 

Tomorrow, I will use the weight paint tool in blender, that way when I move the bones, the appropriate sections of the body will follow the bones.

December 9 2015

Today, I finished everything that has to do with texturing. That includes the eyes.

after I textured the inner eye, I went onto the outer eye. And what I did there was create a new texture, called it Eye.Outer and then went to the node editor to make it how I want it to look. It was pretty interesting because I switched the kind of texture it was from Diffuse BSDF to a Glass texture. Which made it transparent, and refract light.

On the left, is the inner eye without an outer eye piece. And the right is with the outer eye. As you can see, is refracts the iris to make it look like it comes out with the bulge, but it is actually just flat. And reflects some of the light from the other eye. 

Once I finished the texturing of the Left eye, I just deleted the right eye, and mirrored the left eye, separated the two, and renamed the other eye to eye.R and eyeOuter.R.  

I also started the beginnings on the armature rigging.

That is one bone. I will extrude multiple bones coming from that, to make the entire skeletal structure of the character, then I can go ahead and animate him. Then I can pass him off to Emanuel, and he can put him into a unity game.

Tomorrow, I will continue progress on the armature rigging.

December 8 2015

Today, I finished texturing.

  and fixed the problem I was having with baking my textures. The problem was because somehow, sometime during my process I selected a button that restricted rendering on my entire character. So I just had to unselect it and it worked. After that, I baked my normal map so now it has this purple/blue colour sheet containing all the bump information on my character. I also ended up going back to the node editor which I used a long time ago in the beginning of the semester. This was so I could apply my textures in the cycles render engine because I did all the texturing in the Blender render.

The only difference is, is that I had to add a UV Coordinator node so it knew where to find each texture in the given texture map. That way all the colours went to where they are supposed to go.

I also ran into yet another problem today. That I still need to learn how to fix. And it is with texturing the eyes of my character.

as you can see, the iris takes up the entire front half of the eyeball, which isn't quite right. To fix it, I need to use the proportional editing tool. But the problem is, is that the proportional editing tool isn't working for me. It just does everything normally as if I weren't using one. Which I don't want. And I don't know how to fix it. 

So tomorrow, I will figure out how to fix it, and then I think I will start rigging my character.

December 7 2015

Today, I started texturing and detailing the colours. I added some texturing to the pants, and leather vest.

as you can see, the front of the pants are nearly completed. I actually did complete them after I took the screenshots and ended up running into a problem while baking my textures onto one single square sheet of textures. And  I can't seem to get it to work. I run into a problem that states "No Images or objects found to bake to." And I tried looking it up, but I can't really seem to find a good tutorial on how to fix it. 

So tomorrow, I will be attempting to fix this so I can proceed to the rigging. Because if I have even one small problem like unable to bake, it could build into an even bigger problem.

December 4 2015

Today, I finished coloring. Now All I have to do is small colour details and texturing.

And I Kind of already started adding some colour details too. In the image below, you can see taht I have added some subtle freckles and blush around the mouth and eyes. And I do need to add the iris to the model as well. Then I can start rigging and animating.  

Tomorrow, I will be finishing the detailing and starting to texture him.

December 3 2015

Today, I began texturing. It is actually relatively simple.

Most of him is coloured with a diffuse layer. Meaning, that is is only a colour, there is no bump map, or specularity (reflection). All you have to do is switch your engine from cycles render, to the internal Blender Render, because that has more texturing tool than the Cycles Render. Then, you switch from Object mode to texture paint mode, then have at her. You can switch your brushes by selecting the brush icon, and choosing whatever brush you want. I have been using the fill brush, that way I don't waste any time. You can assign where the paint will go by selecting faces by turning on face selection mode. You also have to make a new texture before hand, so keep that in mind. And if you want to save your colour map, you have to save twice. Once you have to hover the mouse over the UV Map editing window, and hit [Alt+S] to save over the diffuse map. then hover over anything else and hit [Ctrl+S] to save blender file as.

So this is what I have today for my diffuse map.

you can see that everything on my model is unwrapped, and a lot of it is coloured, and I will hopefully finish coloring it tomorrow. 

December 2 2015

Today, I finished UV Mapping, I have the entire UV Map done, and I must now start texture painting on the character.

You can see that the black and white squares cover every piece on the model, and wherever the squares are small, that means that they will have a greater resolution than the rest of the model. So, on the face of the model, the squares are smaller than the rest of the model, that is because I wanted the resolution to be greater seems how that is where a lot of the focus will be.

And also, I organized the menu, by joining all the pieces except for a select few into one object.

All the things that aren't under the name "Character" haven't actually been mapped yet, but that is because the person I am watching says he will do something else with them later.

Tomorrow, I will start texturing the character.

December 1 2015

Today, I basically finished UV Mapping, and getting most of the pieces to be the proper size. All I have to do, is mirror the one boot and the arm, and eyes, then I can start texturing.

You can see that the squares are all an average size, that is because in the UV Mapping screen, you can change the size, and orientation with [Ctrl+A] to make all the islands an average size, and [Ctrl+P] to orient them in the square.

Tomorrow, I will be finishing UV Mapping, and starting to texture

November 30 2015

Today, I FINALLY finished modeling, and started UV Mapping.
The whole premise of UV Mapping is basically telling blender where the texture will go when you make the textures. So to start, You would select whichever object you want (after switching your view to the UV Mapping preset) then hit the [U] key, and select unwrap. You would end up with an image like this minus the checker pattern, you would add that by selecting add image, and then select the uv mapping preset.

Now, you will notice that it is in 4 different parts, that is because it would not be proper if I did it all in one. So, I elected where a seam would normally be on a real life shirt, then hit [Ctrl+E] and selected mark seam, then I did unwrap. I did that with some pieces that I did today, and then you go to the node editor, make a new texture, add a node, an image texture, and select that texture pattern from before. 

Then your model should look something like this once you switch the mode to texture from solid or wireframe.

As you can see, the majority of the blocks are the same size, that is what you want. If you have really large squares, (you would get really big ones if you don't mark seams in the proper points) then you have to fix it. That is all I did today besides finished modeling the belt buckle which was relatively simple after I did the buckle for the buckle on the flap on the helmet. 

Tomorrow, I will continue to UV Map. 

November 27 2015

I actually finished less than I thought I would. I basically just have to model the buckle then the belt is done.

I basically just modeled it using previous methods that I used for things like the strap for the goggles. You can see that I put a little bit of detail into the belt by making the end of the belt bend out and won a little bit.  There isn't really much to be said here today, it was pretty uneventful in terms of amount done. 

Tomorrow though, I will finish the belt, and finally start texturing. It should progress relatively quickly, and I am excited to take a small break from modeling now. 

November 26 2015

Today, I FINALLY finished the Boots. And I actually like how they came out. When I finished my boots, I learned I can still select anything that isn't connected to it, so I just combined all the components of the boot excluding the laces, and joined them together, and if i need to, later I can just take them apart again. I mainly did that so my menus are easier to navigate through, and also so it would be much faster to UV Map and add the mirror modifier.

I also modeled the pants, I didn't really feel like doing a bunch of different modeling, so I just made it so the wrinkles are the same on both sides. But the good thing is, is that it works on both sides, and you can only really tell that they are the same if they have the same amount of lighting on both sides like if I were to look at it dead on in the front view. 

I also started work on the belt. For the belt, I just selected the faces approximate to where I want it to be, then duplicated the faces, used the shrink/fatten tool, then separated it from the pants and named it belt so it is easy to find in the menu. 

 Tomorrow, I will finish the belt, it shouldn't take that long, I just need to shape it to the body, apply the mirror modifier, then I need to use the edge split tool down the middle in the front, and make one side go over the other, then apply the solidify modifier, then model the buckle, then it is done. 

It sounds like a lot of work, but it is really easy, I should be able to get it all done in one class, then I can finally move on to the UV Mapping and Texturing. 

November 25 2015

First of all, I would like to address a problem I had. I needed to make the aglet of the shoe lace, but I had no idea how, but upon some hard research, I found that I needed to convert each lace to mesh from curve, which I did with [Alt+C] which I can either convert Mesh to Curve/Text or from Curve to Mesh.

You can see that it is no longer a spline, but it is a mesh, so I can freely move each face. So with that in mind, I made the aglets to the laces, and closed up the holes on the bottom of the aglets.

So, now I am officially done the boots. But I still have yet to mirror it and do the pants part. Once I am done everything, modeling wise, I will organize everything so my menu will be a lot easier to look through, so it will be easier for me to find what piece I need when I am texturing. 

But I did end up with one problem, one that I cannot easily fix. 

Do you see it? I accidentally made the wrong lace go over the other on the last grommet of the boot. And they are already made into mesh's. I do have a previous save file that didn't have it like that, but I would have to model the aglets again, which I don't really want to do.

So, tomorrow, I will do the pants, and mirror the boot. then I am thinking I will finish the pants tomorrow, then start work on the belt so I can hurry up and get to texturing. 

November 24 2015

Today, I just about finished the laces to the boot, but just cut short because of time. But I did make very well progress.

You can see that the laces keep the same patter all throughout the boot, but it does change a little bit when it goes to the last 2 lace grommets.

To make the laces, I just created one spline path, then made the resolution 9, and upped the thickness of it while making it a full model, not the default half. Then once I got the very first lace, I just duplicated it, then re modelled accordingly to make the criss-cross pattern. Then once I got the first one, I then just duplicated each one while making small changed to fit the other grommets which is pretty tedious. I then went through it all and made it look like the laces were tied together tighter. 

Now, it may look like the laces are one full object, but in-fact, they are all separate objects as you can see in the next image

They don't connect, they just look like they do with the rest of the boot there, it will be good for when I have to animate and rig the character. 

Tomorrow, I will finish the laces, then do the pants part, then delete the inside faces of the boot, then I will mirror the boot, and then finally, do the belt. But I don't think I will do the pouches on the belt because of my limited time and I want to get to texturing as soon as possible while still keeping my model good quality. 

November 23 2015

Today, I finished modeling the base shoe, including the lace loops where the laces will be strung through. But I still have to work on the actual laces .

To do the lace loops, I just created a torus, scaled the Major and minor radii down accordingly. Then just placed them, and rotated them. I have them in the exact same position on both sides of the shoe, but only took screenshots of the one side. 

I also finished modeling the Ankle piece of the shoe so it fits around the tongue of the shoe, and the ankle of the leg. 

I also applied the solidify modifiers in preparation to remove all the inside faces, and so I can flatten the edges of the tongue and ankle piece 

Tomorrow, I must remove all the inside faces after I remodel the pants. Then I will add the laces to the shoe. 

November 17 2015

Today, I continued work on my shoe. I got pretty close to finishing it, actually. Well, aside from the laces.

As you can see, I have basically finished the base mesh of the shoe. I just have to finish the ankle pieces. Basically I just have to shape it to the toe piece a little bit, and make it slightly longer than what I have it at the moment. You can see that I have a piece on the end of the heel, all I did for that, was create a plane, size is down, then cut it horizontally and removed one face, curve it, then that was basically done once I added the solidify modifier, and the subdivision surface modifier. Same with the Ankle part. I just created a plan, made it big, then cut it in half horizontally again, then curved it, subdivided it some more. Then I extruded it so I can bring it across the toe part, that way it looks like it does in the tutorial. Added the solidify and the subsurf modifier, then that part is pretty much done.

As you can see, it fits nicely to the pants (which I still have to turn the legs into). I am pretty happy with these results, and am looking forward to the finished product. 

Tomorrow I will be finishing this part, and starting the laces and their holes in the ankle piece, then after that, I must start the belt. Then after that, I can FINALLY start UV mapping and texturing.