uv mapping and painting weights

Texturing

I really enjoy texturing my Character, my model was originally in nurbs I thought that I would have to convert to polys as I wouldn't be able to texture. However, I was able to texture on to nurbs surface successfully as my geometry suited the textures that I need. (If I were to do this again I would UV map in polys as my model would be mde out of polys and I wouldn't have the problem with stretching like the front of the hood. However they're are ways that we could pull the texture to suit the look I wanted by going in to the UV map. (ran out of time to finesse). I imported the desired textures in to photoshop and enhanced effects on the fabric and created a black and white version for Bump mapping. Made this into a square format. I then assigned new material by using mostly lamberts and adding bump map. played around with tolerances etc to achieve the look I wanted. I really like the texture on the arms the best as it looks like fabric.

Just a quick overview of schedule

Week 1 Introduction to project

Week 2 Choose project and write out brief

Week 3 visit zoo

Week 4 Brainstorm ideas for characters

Week 5 Model

Week 6 Skin

Week7 Rig

Week8 Texture and Paint weights

Week 9 Animate

This was my ideal schedule. I knew this was going to be an extremely tight project as I wasn't sure what measure to take with each step. The first couple of weeks was taken up by moving house and had no computer so did alot of the preliminary work by hand. At first I spent a long time watching tutorials and reading and found that I was changing the technique of modeling the design of model according to whatever tutorial. This was not because of lack of focus but rather not knowing the best way to tackle my design. I feel that it would have been beneficial at first to go through design and establish the best route to take. A lot of the time was used trying to try different techniques for modeling my character. I started again 3-4 times until I was happy with outcome. using different techniques with EP curve tool and revolving and editing shapes using lattice deformers, Isoparms and Hulls. This was a good learning curve for me as I learnt lots of different ways to model.....not necessarily the best approach with the tight deadline. However I found that the Maya Character book by Cheryl Cabera very beneficial as recommended by Steve but was difficult to follow rigging. I found Steves tutorial easier to follow. Also I originally was going to model Cornelius and decided last minute to model Willie as I thought he would be easier to start of with and a lot of students were modeling the gorilla, if I wanted to finish the concept at a later stage I could combine someone else's model of the Gorilla to animate. However, I will model Cornelius during Christmas as I really like the design and would love to animate the scene with the two characters as described earlier on in this journal. I feel that I have pretty much stayed on top of my plan and it's only in the later stages that I was missing the deadlines set due to ongoing problems. I can see why people specialize in certain areas in industry as you need to know each area in depth be it rigging, texturing or modeling etc. else I think you would just blow up!!!!!

Quick clip of walk painted weights not done yet.

Unfortunately I did not finish painting weights on Willie Billiums. I am very dissapointed that I wasn't able to animate the character for submission. I have had many problems along the journey of creating Willie. Even though I have set certain tasks to be acheived on set days I have fallen behind due to resolving ongoing problems. This was not unrealistic or too optimistic of me but, rather blissful ignorance as I didn't know what to expect. as mentioned before I have not modeled before let alone rig and animate. After applying lights and camera I set the scene ready for rendering. I have animated a small amount of the character with the weights unfinished just to show how the character would look like. This is no where near to how I want Willie to move but just showing how it would look. I had problems with setting the texture to the eyes as I did not set a shader before combining mesh so at this late stage I've had to render as it is. If I had more time I would correct the distortion on the front of the hood and change the color of the cord attached to the hood and the stitches. I would also have the surface texture on the body slightly raised to give form and definition to the texture. Unfortunately with bump map added it was far to defined in rigidity and depth so decided to take off the bump. I basically need another day to get the textures exactly how I would like it. I am pretty much happy with the overall appearance of Willie Billium and feel that it is very close to my original concepts. Ideally I need another two days to finish it. Faran gave me a really good tip on rotating my character for rendering...to create a camera and move the character instead of the camera when rotating. This gives a far smoother flow when rendering out the sequence. Cheers buddy! I set the camera and set the key from 1 to 96 which gave (if set at 24 frames per second) 4 seconds of animation.

Spent early morning playing around with lighting and camera ready fro rendering.

Problems with conversion

Realized as I was painting weights that when Willie was converted into polys to combine the surfaces the nurbs model and another poly model was contained. Even though I did not notice this when I was animating only appeared when I rendered the scene. Just deleted the unwanted surfaces. The foot had a joint missing which made the feet not follow the movement this was easily rectified in adding another joint.