Progress for the weeks of November 3rd and November 10th

Curpigeon related:

At the request of the animators, I've retooled the wings on the rig, allowing for a more staggered range of movement. Now, if one were to move the arm control, the elbow and wrist would follow only in translation, rather than rotation. It took several trial and error sessions, and more skin weight adjustments toe get the wings to look passable, compared to it's earlier iteration. I've also added a wing fold control to the shoulder of each wing, though if the controls along the wing are not zeroed, the wings will break.

It has also been agreed on to do the singular rig for multiple birds, though a recent test showed that the other models built so far are not compatible with the base model, preventing the blend shape aspect of the rig from working properly. I may need to find another solution to this quickly.


Golem related:

more modeling work performed, adding in the arm vines network into the body, as well as the support vines for the left shoulder. I've also connected some of the brush nodes onto a simple control system to test the rate that the vines could move. While a nice representation of what I'm aiming for, the vines themselves need to be broken apart within the time of the controller, so a more refined control will be necessary for the construction rig.

The animation aspect of the rig may now have some new foundations, after I had asked one of my professors who had worked on the rock monster in "Galaxy Quest." He commented that the monster was actually a set of props built onto a single rig. The first set was just the big shape of the monster so that the basic movements could be done, verifying that an earlier idea I had for the rig wasn't far off. The second portion of the rock monster rig, which is what I've been struggling to get a good sense of how it would be set up, functions based on a dynamic spring system. The setup goes something along the lines of as follows:

A dynamic spring constraint is set between the joint of the rig system, and that of a particle. This will allow for the particle to slide about and jostle, while still being connected to the rig. From there, I would connect the stones I wish to have in place to the spring bound particle. via a group. From there, I would need to add another control to the stone for manual placement, should the stone stray too far from the course. I will need to test this potential system as well once time allows.

Progress Log for the week of October 27th, 2013

Not much to report on this week. Due to a recent job opportunity, I haven't had as much time to work on the golem or the pigeon. What little I did is as follows:

For the golem, more body structural formation via new vines placed and some joint placement tests. However, due to the abnormal limb sizes, I can't just mirror over joints, so I need to be cautious on how I orient them. I asked Jason Patnode in regards to how I could get an interactive system similar to that of the rock monster from Galaxy Quest. Though he demonstrated using a fractal texture and plugging that into the translation nodes of the stones, it doesn't quite match what I was aiming for. I asked another student in class, and they recommended using a rigid dynamic system, as it would be the only way to attain that free floating, yet interactive look I was aiming for. I'll have to make time to retry this system again, though I know that it will be very heavy on the system. Maybe I can bake in the animations of the stones interacting to help ease the load on the rig.

In terms of the pigeons, it has mostly been cleanup on the wings and neck area. Around Tuesaday, I received notes from the animators, requesting some more controls and deformation fixes. Stepping in to the class on Friday, there was a brief recap on said fixes, and some suggestions, as a scaling control system on the mouth, and a bending control on the top of the beak. Another suggestion, which I'm considering more than the others, is an IK/FK hybrid system for the neck, as well as a more detailed control over the feathers on the wings, as currently, the wings rotate based solely on the wrist and elbow. There was a request for feather bending, but I informed the animators that something like that is low on the priority list at this time.