Creating clothing

So here is the progress I have been making with the clothing. So far so good. The geometry when smoothed looks pretty good and matches the form of the character. My only worry is how this will be rigged as it is separate from the character, I'm afraid I don't know enough about character modeling and rigging to know if this will be a problem.

Today I set about crating the vest trousers and jacket. When creating the vest and jacket in maya I realised I could use existing body geometry and alter the mesh to create clothing.

Originally the mesh was only 1 polygon thick but I decided to add a little thickness to the clothes so that it did not look too computer generated. I tried to keep the polygon count low which would reduce memory and frame loss. This should make things easier when animating.

Some of the images show the wireframe which had to be as clean as possible to prevent polygon tearing in the rigging process.

When modeling the trousers I used the same technique of duplicating the body and cutting out the necessary geometry. This technique proved to be highly effective as I was able to create the objects quickly which would save time but would also match the body geometry. I was pleased with the results however, they do appear somewhat flat. Im sure with appropriate textures this will improve this.

The arms and deltoid muscels

I have begun modeling the base mesh for the main character in the short animation I am currently working on and I will admit that I know little about the construction of a character in maya. When I spoke to Clym recently he suggested that I look online for tutorials and images on topology. Topology is necessary for good polygonal flow, which is crucial when trying to rig and animate the character effectively. If there is no edge flow when creating the model this will not simulate muscle and bone structure that is necessary for locomotion. I was pretty pleased with the outcome of the torso region as this represented all the characteristics of the concepts while at the same time maintaining good edge flow. However as I began to model the upper arm or deltoid muscles I noticed that there was no real muscle definition. Clym kindly pointed me in the right direction. In order for the arm to move correctly when animated I need to define the deltoid muscle. He also said that I needed to create a pauldron shape like a piece of armour. This would be ideal when rigging the character as well as bringing out muscle tone in zbrush. In order to create the muscle structure I needed a five-edged star. This would help me redirect the polygon flow to create a spherical mass, which would form the deltoid. The five-edged star would allow polygons to flow in three direction instead two which is necessary for this type of modeling.

I applied this technique to my model, which proved to be successful. When smoothed muscle tone and definition could be observed which was the effect I was looking for.

The Legs and Feet

After constructing the torso area of the character I continued modeling the character by working on the legs and feet while Chris concentrated his efforts on the head and facial features. When building up the leg framework i had to consider how the character would move and prepaer for the rigging stage. Similar to the

I spoke to Andy today about going about rigging the character ready for animation. He recommended that I needed to texture the model first before I could begin the rigging phase. This is because if the model is rigged before the object is surfaced this would result in texture ripping. This means that the texture would not be directly attached to the rig and could not be properly animated. This is something to consider for the next stage in character completion.

Frank, The Torso

With the character sheets more or less complete I took on the responsibility of modeling the character in Maya. I knew that with time running out we needed to take steps to completing the model ready for the rigging process that would enable us to animate the model. It was very important that we construct the character model quickly as I also realised that the animation and rendering processes would themselves take long periods of time to get right.

I first set up the scene by importing the front and side images of the character sheet that will allow me to construct the rough shape of the character. The images are a rough guideline which should help me rough out the proportions correctly. I started out by modeling the torso of the character based on the image planes. To keep the model simple and more malleable at this verts stage I tried to create the model using as few polygons as possible but would still have enough definition to produce a somewhat realistic character.

I tried to adhere to the advice that Clym mentioned before, particularly in the shoulder region. By adding five sided stars this would allow the character to move efficiently when animated. I started the construction of the torso region by creating a cube which I then manipulated by moving individual verts to create the pectoral muscles and the abdomen. I used the edge loop to to increase the sub divisions necessary for good edge flow. I continuously checked the models edge flow by adding a smooth node which would allow me to preview what the object would look like when it was smoothed. By doing this I could easily spot problem areas in the topology and address them accordingly by moving the necessary verts to produce a better image. It should be noted that when I started building the framework for the character I concentrated my efforts on creating only one side of the body. I did this to purely save time as I could mirror the existing object to create a symmetrical mesh. This not only saved huge amounts of time, but would also allow a rigging artist to easily separate the necessary areas ready for the skinning process.