crushed clown causes calamity at the circus!!!

on friday afternoon...around tea time, the body of john the clown was found near his home near the entrance of the travelling circus.

john (age unidentified) was said to be feared by children and his case is almost certainly being treated as death by gigantic shoe crushing...ironically from one of his own shoes which slipped off and crushed him whilst he was painting minature models of children being shot out of a miniture model of a cannon.

john had no next of kin to comment on this matter but circus ring master the amazing grigsby said "its a terrible terrible loss.....were now looking for new applicants"

john will be buried in the traditional manner of clowns: by allowing locals to throw custard pies at his body and then being driven off in the worlds smallest funeral car...

ok...back to normality. Heres a look at John's UV texture window.

heres a test of the textures on the model (yes im aware the wireframes on there...its for my guidance):

yeah, it became clear that the textures...weren't all that clear. Infact...the resolution was poor....VERY poor. I will be the first to put up my hands and admit im NOT a texture artist, i know very little about it and was creating the textures without knowledge of resolution and the image size of my snapshot...all this culminated towards a very POOR outcome....you hear me...POOR!

it will all have to be redone...annoying BUT necessary if we want these models to look quality.

so after discovering the image resolution was a problem, the textures were still applying blurry like your old nan's vision...even with the filter type off....THEN the almighty discovery. I split up the arms onto individual UV snapshots...i can get away with this as the geometry is all separate....note for the future when modeling.

So heres the new UV snapshot

updates to that model:already the quality of the textures is mmmmmuuuuch better...you no longer feel like you have cataracts when looking at them. Areas that require cloning/heal brush tool in maya where i had adjust the painted texture to fit the model. 

darn trouser leg!

shoe stretching....possibly need re UVing.

edge of the texture showing! seam is less important as we wont see the back of the character but i will try to rectify this as well. 

heres the wonderful difference to the resolution...this is still without bump at the moment...more updates to come.

making of: the texture has to be offset twice, horizontally and vertically so that it runs seamlessly and can be tiled instead of resized to minimize any resolution loss. The lines are then painted over using the clone stamp and healing tool so the texture is seamless...perfecto!

how it stands...what a beautiful clown :P

move and sew UV edges....move and sew UV edges...

its plain to me that UVing, although a skilled task, is a monotonous job which is taking me a lot longer than i thought...i have thank yous to make

YANIV..for your continual support and tutoring with this task of texturing and mapping, your expertise in this subject is much appreciated

MATT...for also your knowledge in this area and had to avoid getting into immense detail...also for helping to solve the painted cylindrical issue

JARED...for solving the matching textures issue with use of photoshops offset tool as stated "one of its only uses"

UVing

i can safely say that last project i did not enjoy the likes of UV mapping...mainly because i didnt understand exactly what i was doing. However i can say that my confidence is greatly improved after Sultan's lecture to find out i wasn't getting it completely wrong and whilst a long process, can be broken to into manageable chunks...sounds like an advert for bbc bitesize ARRGH

damage report!!! heres the updates of me laying out those old UVs:

Keeping up appearances: i've separated the UVs according to left and right of the model to keep things in order....makes sense

i will return soon with moooooore fantastic updates ya'll

pour dan

so after oogling pictures of john dan and i agreed on his scale and ive sent the file back over to dan so he can adjust bennys scale to this....it's good to finally see the character in the environment as its seen like 2 separate elements up until this point.

Im very pleased with Dans work on the benny model too, i think hes really managed to capture and maintain the element within my 2d concept :)

before....and after....giant clown vs wee clown :)

ok so with the characters scaled, its time to move onto UV mapping...heres where were at on the old schedule....
never UV'd a character before but im confident we can complete in the 5 days set aside for this area of the pipeline. This is my only o err area of weakness so far so if we can get through this aspect the other areas im confident we can meet on time in order to get to the acquired goal of ani-mani-nating. Were meeting deadlines ok but we really need to speed through in order to meet these other deadlines as ROA is fast approaching not to mention other unit deadlines with contextual studies and the dvd show-reel unit for dalli. 

attack of the giant clown!!!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! 

im so glad we checked the character sizes now rather than later..obviously Dan and i have been working to different scales which needs sorting so were ready to UV etc. 

some scale options...dan please give me your input on these...

modelling complete!!!

huzzar! took longer than initially scheduled as I took on both character but finally we can move onto the next stage of plotting the UVs. I hope the texturing to be by then end of this week so we can move onto rigging and skinning....this will require more of our time so we can get some top notch animation :)

Without further ado...heres John:

i feel happy with these outcomes. During the modelling stage, i have been refering to my expression sheets explicitly to make sure i had enough verts for all the different shapes when it comes to blend shapes. This is something i didnt do last time and it meant creating blend shapes was harder as the character was modelled without consideration of how it would then deform into different shapes.

currently were not doing too badly at meeting the schedule, though the next days are crucial for getting the benny model completed and starting to lay out the UVs of the characters, which neither me or dan have done before. There's only 5 days set aside for this, so we'll need to really push ourselves in order to meet this target so that the time for animating doesn't suffer any further. We can do it!!!

creases and seams

my model once mirrored had created a huge seam throughout which would certainly show once textured and rendered...its annoying and needed sorted.

i tried soften edges, merging all the verticies, setting normal angles, conforming...you name it, i tried it...

so it was in to college to find me some help in the form of ....

YANIV!!! a big thank you to him for spending a lot of time with me today sorting out the model. He managed to correct the issue by averaging the vertices, unfortunately this did mean that a lot of the shape was lost from the model BUT it meant i had to remodel parts...i just imported an old version and matched it up so to speed things up.

Very happy with this outcome now and UVing can begin!!!

heres some before and afters:

this is the pathetic annoyance of the whole matter....THIS CREASE aaaaaaah! 

yaniv tried normals > harden edge to roughen out the entire model
and then average verticies to smooth out the geometry. This model is with the old feet though as the down side of average verticies is that you loose some of your models shape. Since the shoes were as i wanted them, i simply hacked off his feet and combined the old ones to the model.  WERHEY! looking great john (big oversized thumbs up)

test blend

as previously mentioned, i wish to limit the amount of...mess ups. My last project resulted in a loss of blend shapes and foot attributes, and although im confident as to why this happened, i wished to test a few scenarios to rule out any other reasons why this may have occured.

with my john model, i duplicated it and then had 2 different setups

1. head and lower body geometry are NOT connected, blend shapes are made simply from the head and then the lower geometry is connected AFTERWARDS
2. head and lower body geometry are CONNECTED, blend shapes are made from this.

this was a good experiment as the second model seemed to work more effectivly than the first. im not sure whether my maya got confused bout two sets of characters in there, but once the geometry had been connected and verts merged seemed unable to create a new set of blend shapes.  I have read back through my book on rigging and the characters demonstrated seem fully connected and able to have multiple blend shapes so it shouldnt be an issue. it would be if further additions to the model were added. 

to push it one step further (as i say im really really trying to consider every potential reason why i suffered issue last time) i created a quick rig and bound it to the model. Again in both instances this meant that the rig could be manipulated as well 

overall, im confident which method to take now, and am reassured why i had the issues last term. As long as i don't confuse the models history by adding more edge loops etc to it then all blend shapes and attributes should work effectively.

the illusion of deception

late into the night, a quick test to find out how benny will be keyed in the scene so that he can disappear and reappear without having lots of models within the scene. 

benny handed over to the other clown

last night i waited just outside of the local woods...

i waited....and waited......

and an hour later than planned, an almost giant figure emerged from the darkness.

no words were exchanged, just a knowing look to one another....

and the file containing benny was passed over to the other side.

RIGHT

to summerise, dan has taken over with completing the model of Benny. As the scene is basically there (with just a few colour changes we agreed on that night...sorry dan) Dans ready to take over with his character. I was happy with the progress i had made with the model, and believe Dan will make an excellent job tarting it up haha! The pinch in the John model was also sorted so now John is near enough ready to be UV'd. 

Heres how far i got with benny:

Benny melt

well its all look-OH MY GOD! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO BENNY!?!?!

haha! im only kidding, im just testing out a rig benny to see what joints are and arent needed/there placement etc. Being a fat waddler, bennys influences will need to be zeroed out in a lot of places otherwise the following happens. This trial includes a floating knee joint and IK handle for the up and down...reverse foot is gonna be needed on top of this so the waddle can happen. 

after removing influence from benny's body...couple mins work = maaaaajjor improvements :)
for bennys rig, im looking very closely at the work Studio A.K.A did on their penguin who has a lot of similarities to our character....fat little waddler with floating feet. Ive been watching a few walk cycles to see the placements of the joints a bit better...well...its guess work but you know!

apologies for the quality of the images...you get the point though...

penguin walk cycle: when watching this, the actual characters foot passes through the bottom of the body

this allows the rig to have some extreme capabilities such as the stretch in image 2. Image 4 shows the feet as their floating elements, it gives charm to the character though.
...its always best to think a few steps ahead, this will certainly help me with my rig plan

uh oh

to put it frankly and without swearing...bennys model has done something so weird...so annoying...so PAINFULLY unexplainable...i cant explain it

i think this says it all

i know...your thinking wot the ?&*% too...

everything seems to have doubled up on itself

CONTROL Z LIKE THE WIND

annnnnnnnd breathe....everythings fine but JESUS im glad i found this out now instead of later....we'd have been in deep........mess *ahem*

theres some weird option i must have clicked on....must have been the "screw up" attribute that did this....i'll be watching you maya

weights testing

after a discussion with the genius that is dave ross, i decided to complete a trial rig. John's rig will be different to those previously completed as Dave suggested not combining the arm to the body so that it could keep its shape/floating quality. This is the process he's used for the bare bear project and he assured me it should not cause complications when painting the weights.

And....

it didn't...were you expecting anything else? ha! This was a good chance to see where potential problems with the model might be too. I only rigged the top half as since John mostly stands to the same spot, the legs aren't as important. So heres some images to document my findings....because now im sort of historical explorer

ignore the rest of the mushed up hand/fingers

big thanks to Dave for helping sort out the models strange mirroring behavior!

ok i rigged the bottom half too to see whats going on there as well. After last projects messed up history resulting in a loss of blend shapes as i kept adding to the geometry i really DO NOT want this to happen again

mirror mirror...

well im at the mirroring stage now, however there's some weird effects going on here as depicted:

also, once smoothed....this is happening?!?

some strange old pinching? ive tried inserting more edges to try and break up the geometry, ive deleted history, all the verts are merged. Ive tried normals > soften edge and this still appears?! 

Any ideas?!

the formative

A good formative, as usual jared was basing our assessment on the contents of our blog. i feel that my blog has been ticking off the essential unit criteria necessary for this unit. Dan and I were commended on our creativity of the idea and experimentaiton documented on our blogs. However we both need to refer to the schedule more explicitly as currently, ive just been posting updates with no explanation. We also need to change part of our schedule by leveling resources which Jared is going to show us how to do, so we can see which jobs are dependent on others. I also need to post up more progress blogs of the character modeling, there are blogs set aside for this....i just hadn't got round to collecting/uploading imagery as of yet...i will do though. 

Other than that...it's all looking good. I think me and Dan know we need to push ourselves a bit more, i personally would like the character modeling complete soon as i would like as much time as possible to rig and animate including problem solving time for any potential issues that may occur between these tasks. 

ani-mani-mation

just been sent this animation short called "bath time" Good example of character duo relationships with simple enviornments and character design. 

benny's hat part 2

a couple more varieties of the propeller hat for Benny. 

From left to right: the original design, one hat asleep...an ice-cream, new design with 2 blades 1 x flat, 1 x twisted blade. Keep your suggestions coming in! Now that ive worked out how it will be animated, its quite simple to make changes to the design.

benny's hat

benny requires a working propellar hat for our animation. Initially this required a bit of trial and error...if i can stress keeping models on a straight before trying to rotate things etc it saves so much time without confused x,y and z axis in animation! Ok so the hat was again made out of nurbs circles (a found favorite of mine) converted into polys. The propeller and stalk and actual propeller are separate objects that actually line up at the top...pretty seamless eh? :) so then the...

i initially tried grouping the propeller to the stalk but this didnt work when it came to rotating and generally moving the hat. Its now parented so works marvelously if i do say so myself...

ANYWAY

this was just my test, i have a duplicate version of all the elements uncombined if it proves easier for texturing.

griggles: if you let me know what you think of the style of the hat etc so i can make any necessary changes

the characters

so change of plan as i decided to take Benny off of Dan's hands and start modelling him. I would prefer Dan got the set and the lighting ready so that we dont limit our time on this at the end...i know the more that Dan tweaks, the better the overall look will be. Its obvious from the inital texture tests that the final outcome will depend on the quality of the lighting. If i can get Benny as far a long as I can, Dan can take over again and we'll both be on par instead of Dan having to catch up. It gives me a break from working on the one model by flitting between each one...

in terms of John...im feeling much happier about the way he's looking. I kept in mind the traffic cone shape and remodelled this using nurbs circles. i then deleted the faces of the old head and stitched in his facial geometry including brow, nose and mouth and the rest as they say is history...or rather delete history merge verts *ahem*

the old model...lost the intentions of the 2d design....too curved, loss of harsh features/lines i was originally going for.

the new model! using nurbs curves i created a cone shape that stretched down to his trousers. I then cut away at selected faces and stitched the old face on there...already an IMMEDIATE improvement :)

starting to smooth out the geometry...looking much better. Very happy with this now

benny

although he looks deceptivly simpler than John's design i can assure you he has an equal number of challenges. Main issues are currently his eyes. Im trying to cut away faces so the eyes can be hidden behind the face. However, as Benny is completely spherical, when you pan around you can see the gaps between the face and eyes....hmmm.....will require some problem solving. Other challenges include Benny's hat which requires a working propellar, im sure this will just require some more trial and error, dan and i discussed briefly a method of grouping which might work, but i shall need to test this to make sure all the elements will follow Benny when he moves/rotates.

it started with a sphere...cut in half and verts changed round to meet the trouser line...starting to loose the spherical shape though of benny. old attributes added such as the arm and feet are from my old model.

eye hole cut out...bennys eyes need to sit behind his geometry. the sphere has been seperated into 2 now to divide the facial and the pants but retain the spherical shape of benny. seems a lot more tricky to get a perfectly round shape

Other aspects of the characters i need to sort out include creating any inner mouth geometry such as teeth or tongues as well as lining up verticies ready to attach the arms when skinning.

I wish to move on from modelling, again i feel this process has taken longer than originally scheduled but perhaps we werent allowing enough time for this. By the end of the next week i wish to have both characters UV mapped so we can then move onto skinning which does require more time spent on it so that its correct.

In the mean time, the set is complete so i guess this gives both myself and Dan opportunity to focus on our characters now. We really need to press on as time is running away.

more inspiration...

i knew it would be good...i didnt know it would blow my mind!

im of course speaking of Henry Selick's film Coraline, based on the children's story by Neil Gainmen.

each character carefully considered, wonderfully animated and uniquely designed. the story is fully developed and thank god did not depend on its true 3d, instead its quite subtle, not in a "oi wheres the 3d like?" but nothing like you were waiting for the next bit of the "ghost train" effect. This film seemed to have everything wrapped up in a neat package...and you have to love the style of this film. Wonderful collation of humour and evil...i wont spoil it, its one you should all see though!

one of my favourite characters, Mr Bobinski...a mass of exaggeration going on with this nut case.

the scene involving bobinski's mice circus was extremely relevant to our project: a heavily stylised brightly coloured world. Anyway...theres something else...that bunting mr grigglesworth (im still not sure its called that) anyway...take a gander at what they used for the film....just two colours...im thinking perhaps we have too many colours going on...as jared said they dont seem to fit in with the rest of the set. Perhaps we should limit ourselves to just 2 colours, green and yellow are used here but we dont necessarily have to use that.

what do u reckon?