Please critique this walk test I created to test the mobility of my character:
http://terminal.pht-suite.com/walk_2.avihttp://terminal.pht-suite.com/walk\_2.avi
Also, please ignore the lack of facial animation as well as hand and toe animation as this is just a test of my IK rigging.
-Thanks
I really like your design and modeling. This is a good start for a walk cycle, but I have some suggestions that may help you refine his motion.
I recommend trying to get him to shift his weight more. It is very difficult for bipeds to lift up one foot without compensating for it. After all, wasn't the foot supporting half the body's weight.
Also, notice that his feet walking in straight parallel lines to each other. Most bipeds move their feet in and out, and almost plant on the same line.
His ankles aren't moving. You will have to add this motion so his feet can plant more accurately. This is well worth the extra effort, because it will add greatly to his character.
Just some suggestions. I think you really have a great character to work with and will have no trouble refining his motion.
Also, thanks for providing a file that is easy to download. It makes it much easier to take the time to see your work.
Hope this helps,
Urp
hi!
very cool character! may i ask ...how is it done?
nurbs? patch or trims?
polys?!?! subD's?
work more on the animations. looks abit stiff, some curve tweekin might do it.
great character!
cu
manne
The character is made completely from Nurbs patches in Maya. The surfaces are bound to FFD boxes. The FFD's are skinned to the skeleton using rigid skinning.
Ok, I have a question for you. How exactly did you use the lattices/ffd on your character? Is there a tutorial on putting them on your character. Your the second or third person that I have seen that uses them, so I went into my character this morning and tried, I ended up with a good result but not perfect. Some of the patches came apart when I use multiple lattices. When I used just one lattice on teh whole character, minus hands. it worked well but still had some weird things happen like the head would get crushed and the chest would crease. I figure I will probably need to use multiple lattices. ANyways, any help you could give would be great.
Oh yeah I like your character.
Cyphre
OK, I don't have a tutorial for this yet but I may post one in the future. In the mean time I can give you the steps that will probably save you the most time.
-This character has no stitched surfaces. I have found surface stitching to be unpredictable for areas where multiple patches meet.
-Each major area of deformation is given a separate FFD Box. Example: Lower torso, upper torso, Leg, Ankle, Foot, Toes, etc.
-Then the surfaces are made members of the FFD Set. (Very Important: Where one deformer set ends and the other begins, use the paint membership tool to make the edge cvs of one area (say the Hand) a member of the Adjoining areas FFD (say the Arm). This will ensure that when The hand rotates the edges remain correctly positioned to the area they meet.
-Next select the points of the FFD where they overlap a bone and skin just those points with rigid skinning to the appropriate bone. (create custom sets for organization-then select the sets and skin away). You will probably have to play with this stage a bit to get the correct skinning.
Tips: For the areas of largest deformation like the shoulder. Ignore the size of the area when creating your FFD. The FFD I used was about 30 * 15 I think. Also, play with the options for the ffd to get smooth transformations.
-Hope this Helps.
Hi.
Yeah, great character, and I really appreciate the help above. I've been having trouble (MAJOR) recently trying to build a creature with nurbs. In the end I had to use poly's but now I think I'll try your way around stitching (which crashes my system!). I'd like to see a textured image though, any in the pipeline, or can I visit your website?
Best.
Larky.
I am starting the process of re-painting the character this week. In the mean time, you can take a look at this temporary paint job:
