I’ve said this before, I’m always hoping and wanting to get more done than I usually do. I was even on track to do just that this week. And then didn’t. This week it’s ok. I am preparing to start an online course that I really want to do well in. I’m trying to get everything ready so that I have enough time set aside for it. As a result, I’ve had to rearrange when and how I do things.
I signed up to take this course that is expected to take 10 to 15 hours a week. At least I think that’s what it said. And I watched a video they sent of another student talking about one of their projects from the course and they said the one project took them all day. So yeah. Need to make sure I make the time. I’m looking forward to it. It’s an opportunity to refresh and interest and some skills that have rusted a bit. It could even lead to new ideas of things to create. The course is two months and I still need to get that Holiday card ready. So things could get a little crazy.
At least I’m a little closer to getting the Holiday card ready. I got Walter, the Worm Guy all rigged. I had a few issues with that. I’m a bit out of practice with the whole skinning and weighting process in 3DS Max. I couldn’t remember how to get to one setting I was looking for so I had trouble getting really fine adjustments to some of the weights. As a result, you can see in this first render, some of the transitions between body sections weren’t as smooth as I really wanted. Oh had I had a little trouble with the eyes at one point. Even though they are grouped with the body, when I skinned the bones and then moved them the eyes rolled back in the head funny. I had to actually skin the head bone to the eyes as well. Then it was all good. It’s not ideal. Ideally I would setup an sub-rig sort of thing for the eyes and have them move with the head but also be able to look around. I’m not really interested in that right now so I didn’t bother. I did make a note though to go back later and give him a better rig in general. It will probably include the eye rig.
Now you might notice in the second render that everything looks much smoother. If I was having that much issue with the finer adjustments what did I do? I found a setting in the skinning modifier that let me change the way the bones were impacting the skin by switching it to a “heat map” method. I’m not sure what the difference is/was or why it looks so much better. It does, and at the moment, that’s all I care about. Walter renders out much nicer now.
I’m still working on which way to go about getting him into the card scene since the render is from one of the frames in the animation timeline I created to work on the skinning part. But hey, I’ll get there. I’ve made it this far. Now onto Funkatmyer the Funky Bird.
Funkatmyer does still need his rig and his materials. I didn’t make any progress there. I have found that the tutorial I used to rig Sticks is the only one really available for rigging in 3DS Max in the current Pluralsight catalog. So that’s what I will be using. Since I’m using 3DS Max 2018 I will need to go through and setup some of the tools that I had previously setup and then I should be able to basically follow along with the tutorial, roughly, to rig Funkatmyer. I remember it being a big job. I am a little concerned that I won’t have him ready for the Holiday card this year. Still, I have some time off from the day job coming up so I might make it. We’ll see. The course I’m taking could take up a lot of that time that I was thinking I would be spending on Funkatmyer and the card.
So at this point, I’m planning on having Walter the Worm Guy, Sticks and the Snowman on the card for sure. I have an idea of what I might do, just don’t know if it’s going to work out like I want. I won’t really know until I start putting everyone in place and do some test renders.
That’s where things are for me. New class starts this week and then I’ll have two weeks off from the day job and lots to do at for the 3D art stuff. I have a feeling it will be a busy vacation, even if I never leave my house. Come back and find out how the first week of class goes, and also the start of the vacation.