Update as of September 21st, 2014

Here is the current status of the golem. The vine script is finally done. A user can create a vine with controls in any direction they want, as well as adjust the thickness of the vine, allowing for either very thick or very thin poly tubes. Originally, there was an issue where the script would allow multiple copies of the locators used for the path, resulting in the script logging a KeyError out and mucking up the previous setup's system. To counter this, I have the buttons lock upon their usage, and unlock once a system is built. There is also a reset button, which clears out the current system being built. To be extra cautious, I have the script log a KeyError in case the user tries to use the same name again, informing them to enter a new name.

On the rig front, I've made some further modifications to the rig. To start, I have the limbs and body form in a sequence, rather than the bulk of the appendage moving into place. This can allow for more interesting animation possibilities. I've also changed how the IK controls on the arms work, allowing for a smooth transition between local and global space, rather than snapping between them. Below is a rough test animation I did to get a better understanding of how things are working on the rig.

While working on the above animation, I had caught a few things that needed correcting that hadn't been brought to my attention previously. A few tweaks later, and things were in a better state. Unfortunately, one of the animators I had asked to test the rig is no longer able to bug test, so I've set up a meeting with the animation department lead to hopefully find a replacement. If one can't be found, I have another contact that offered to help find an animator to test the rig out.

Less related to the rig and more of the textures and materials, I changed the brightness of the horns. The reason behind this is that I asked someone currently in the field to give some advice on how the current model looked. Ultimately, they recommended I make some changes to the horns, the vines, and the area around the boulder.

The horns were casting too much light on the surface directly next to them, so they recommended I bring down the intensity of the light coming from the horns. They also pointed out that my current light setup for test rendering needed work, So I swapped out the spotlight I was using for a directional light. After about two and a half hours of adjustments, I've come up with the images below. It mostly came down to ramping up a lot of final gather settings and playing with the lighting a bit.

With lighting

Without lighting

New directional light with increased final gather settings.

updates as of September 12th, 2014

At this time, I've corrected a few things that still lingered in the main setup:

• Due to the blendshape system I used to create the eyes, rotating them in their socket cause them to open slightly when the flower is slightly closed. I've set the blends so that they shut off if the flower is closed slightly, but allow enough leeway so they still bend a little before hitting the cut off point.
• I've added in controls throughout the small tree on top of the skull. This should allow for some more fine movement in the piece, and can be hidden or displayed via a new attribute on the head control curve.

A new feature I've added in was a more autonomous control setup for the tree stump.

The top directional control above the stump allows for it to shift about, while leaving the roots in their relative place. This control can switch between the local mode, which parents it to the leg joint of the main skeleton, or the roots control, which unlocks a global location control. This is also true for the base of the stump. By adding in a new control to the base, it can switch between the local control of the main skeleton, or a global control for the animator to place where they please.

Another addition to the rig is one at the head.

One of the animators I have testing the rig out requested the various branches have their own controls. I had at first thought of doing this in earlier stages, but had held off on it, thinking that animators would want to avoid as many minor controls. Looking back, it was a foolish decision, so now they've been placed at the various forks in the tree. I will need to update the nCloth file now, however, since the joint count has increased a fair amount.

Elsewhere, on the vine script front, I've made some strides. The curve itself can now match the positions of the joints in the standard version of the vine. I've also worked out how to add in attributes onto script generated controls that aren't just float numbers. Also, thanks to an expression a professor tested in the past when I had the vine scaling issue on the main rig, I've been able to scale up the script vines. It's still not a perfect setup, as paint effects cannot scale in the same way normal geometry does. However, I have found that, by adding in another attribute on the control, an animator can counteract over-scaling when attempting to re-size  the vine. While the control connects to the global scale of the paint effects, the additional attribute increases or decreases the pressureMax attribute on the stroke. This, in turn, can allow the paint effect to stay within a desired parameter of thickness.

The last aspects of the script I need to create are to be able to position the locators anywhere and have the base control be generated there, and the other controls for the rest of the vine to be moved by.

Update as of August 12th, 2014

So a few things to note today. I've completed replacing all of the ground point controls so they stand out against the individual controls of a component. They now consist of two controls: one for the position, and one for the rotation.

I've also replaced the controls on the IK arms and their switches, so that they stand out more.

Same goes for the back vine controls closest to the body. One of the animators I asked to test the rig mentioned that the previous controls got lost in everything, so I vied for a pin shape with a bulky head that stands out away from most of the other controls.

Another error I found was that the left eye wasn't completely working. At some point, the connections were either left incomplete during the time I was preparing them, or a connection was broken amongst the blends during one of the repair sessions I had. none the less, it's been fixed and works just as the right eye does. There was also a nasty issue with the influences in the neck, where the vines, when in place, would overly move with the rotation of the second neck control. Add to this that some of the base points of the neck vines also had some lingering influences that caused them to shift when the neck was moved. This has also been remedied.

The last change is more of an addition. I'm testing out, visually, if adding some smaller vines onto the anchor would be more aesthetically pleasing.

Updates as of July 31st, 2014

So a few updates, but nothing radical.

The golem:

Still trying to figure this golem out overall. Modified the right arm so that it just runs on an SCsolver and some orient constraints, while the left arm uses an RPsolver, but has no real palm or wrist beyond the radius and ulna twist. Also added a new control to the stump, so that it can be offset a bit from the main body, though I'm contemplating making it a separate entity like the stones. Also streamlined the foot rolls into one node.

I'm honestly glad I took a semester away from this thing, because now I can look at it and see what can change to streamline things, as well as fix some readability in the controls.

Studio X

Things are wrapping up, and most everything that was worked on has been cleared. There was a minor hiccup with one file where the skin had been detached and re-bound by someone else on the team, leaving the weights in a poor state due to Maya's lackluster import weights function, but nothing serious enough to cause panic. A short time later, it was fixed, and I proceeded to make other fixes to the rig as a whole.

Beyond these, not much to report on. With the semester coming to a close in the next few days, work will shift back onto the golem with some more refinement and, thanks to a few friends of mine, animation testing.

Cheers,

Dan Rico

Updated activities as of July 26th, 2014

Still under several NDA agreements relating to all of the projects I am on, I will try to explain, as best as I can, what I've done in class thus far.

To start, the one project that wasn't under an NDA, was a bull character rig that needed fixing. Nothing too extreme, in that it needed some paint weight corrections, adding in some controls to replicate the muscles shifting beneath the skin of the shoulder, some pole vectors on the legs, and a better spine system. Add to this an adjusted tail control system and some controls on the testicles, as well as the loose skin beneath the neck, and that sums up the changes.


From here on, I can't say much about the projects, so I'll try to be detailed without revealing anything about the project.


First, this project is not a student collaborative project, but one from outside the AAU system. The initial idea was to create a proof of concept for a character, showing that it was possible to rig the character, as well as maintain the integrity of it's design and the film's aesthetic.

While the first pass proved the idea, it still needed work, so it's been a matter of making slow changes. So far, some attributes have been combined into one, such as the foot rolls, while other attributes have been given their own controls outside the primary rig. What makes this project a little more unique is that it required a duplicate rig to control a similar set of geometry, yet the geometry itself holds a different purpose compared to the primary geometry. The various portions of the geometry, on both the primary and secondary rigs, had to be somewhat modular in nature, in that they need to translate and rotate, regardless of the part of the body they were. Not a complicated task, at first, but due to the nature of the character, it wasn't particularly easy either.


The second project I was on, I ultimately had to leave due to the nature of the class and other projects that were stacking up that needed to be done. This project required a bird rig, which wasn't quite as difficult this time around, as I had built a bird rig on a previous project. Taking what I learned from that project, I applied it to this new rig, but in a much cleaner sense. There were a few revisions on some controls, such as a modified foot roll system, but due to some geometry issues, the project was delayed, ultimately leaving it to be given to another member of the studio x class while was assigned a new character that was ready to go.


The third, and current, project is currently the most complicated. It required three different rigs to be built, with the third being an accumulation of the other two. This one has proven to be the one I've learned the most from, in that having a maximum influence node enabled while weight painting can result in vertex weights flying to other influence object at the most inopportune times. Several of the limbs on the character are also a little more complex to work around, their function being snake like in nature. This piece, too, suffered delays in the modeling department, resulting in a large push recently that require the primary rig to fully functional for a test animation by the end of the night. Thankfully, that goal was met, and now it's just down to fine tuning and tweaks before being labeled complete.


On the side of all of this, I currently have an animator testing out my golem. Once things ease up in the studio X pipeline, I'm going to go in and start on the revisions they have listed thus far.

This is all I can disclose for now.

June 22, 2014: resuming activities

A new directed studies class, so a new set of journal entries. The current class is Rigging Studio X, which simulates the workplace of a company. For me, this isn't particularly new, due to previous freelance work. However, due to NDA documents, I cannot discuss what it is that I'm actually working on, unless given express permission by the parties helming the projects. The most I can say is that I'm currently on a conceptual project, and may soon be on another. If I complete a prototype of one rig, I may be placed on a previous project again and resuming some work there, though I may just keep tabs on it, as I'm on a higher rung in the hierarchy for the class.

As to my golem, I took a short break from really working to give my hands some time to recover, but I've made a bit of progress. Firstly, after a bit of feedback relating to the look of the ground controls, I'm going to test some new ones.

Mostly, I just broke apart the translation and rotation into separate controls, as well as making them circular to better distinguish from the boxes that normally control the various stones.

Beyond this, I did a few texture upgrades.

First are the horns. Using a combination of raw sapphire and smoothed ice from Ice caves, I created this look for them, as well as duplicating and crushing the mesh inwards to create a brighter core for the more intense glowing and light emission.

Then I added the final emblem design onto both the anchor and the opal chest stone. The rainbow effect of the flakes is still not quite there, since the reflective flakes are not randomizing the colors just yet. hey are only based on a sampler info node that connects to a color ramps facing ration node. Once again, I have a dual layer of geometry, though this time, the top layer serves as the surface for the emblem and some transparency to help bloke out the flakes in the blue veins, while the inner geo has a car paint shader to simulate the opal flakes.

Thats all for now.

Cheers.

Updates as of May 11th, 2014

Not much in the way to report this time around. I've completed adding in the remaining cloth sim components for the simulation file. It works for the most part, however, there is an issue with the proximity of all the nCloth objects to one another. With self collide enabled, the simulation time skyrockets, due to the collision thickness is in constant contact. To prevent this massive time lag, self collide was disabled for the time being.

Meanwhile, to reduce the overall dynamic file size, I tossed out all of the excess geometry that have no nCloth counterpart. I've also connected the cloth objects to a control to enable and disable the simulations, so that animators can turn on the dynamics when they wish to do so. I've also create a low res cage for the skull tree to help with simulations.

Everything is currently cached out to help out with calculations.