Oh yeah. I’m supposed to be making travel arrangements, and a couple of cards and I probably a dozen other things.
A quick update on the test for the day job. It did not go as well as I had hoped. I had hoped to pass. I did not. I got close but that really doesn’t make it a pass. They don’t give you a certificate for almost. For now though, I have started to return to things I had put on hold.
Which is pretty much the same stuff I was doing before I had to study for the test. 3D art stuff.
After a full weekend that require I alter my routine a little, I finally sat down to work on Walter. I started with him because I figured he would be the fastest to get ready for the Holiday card. Remember, I’ve got to build a more complicated rig for Funkatmyer.
There were a couple of false starts with getting a new set of bones laid out. For their default setting the bones were so much larger that he is. I hope he scales appropriately for the card. Anyway. I adjusted their size and then laid them out. It wasn’t too difficult, he’s just a straight line. Once I had the bones I was ready for the IK solver. The situation with that was much that same as in Maya. Or so I thought. Some how I have managed to get it to start at the head and go to the tail and bend in the correct direction.
I had a few false starts with the IK solver as well. I tried to use a couple of different options that didn’t really work and then I tried changing some settings and that made a mess too. As I was testing what might work I found the spline solver option. I’ve seen this in one of the tutorials I’ve watched and I think it will ultimately be the best solution for Walter because of the control it will allow. It would allow for more refined control over his pose because I could reshape the curve of his bend to flatten it or change the angle of the head or chest or tail. But it will take a lot more work, and some research, to figure out how to get it setup correctly. So for the moment I’ll stick with the basic IK solver.
I managed to get the bones skinned to the model, or the model skinned to the bones. I’m not sure which is correct. Anyway, they are attached. Now I’m trying to paint the weights so he deforms nicely when he bends. I got started on it, and was busy working along thinking I had only been working a few minutes. Then I realized it was past time to go to bed by about an hour. That meant the next day at the day job was going to be a bit rough. I’ve still got more work to do for the weight painting before it’s really ready for some renders. As a result, I don’t really have much to show as far as pictures yet. I’ve just got a couple of screen captures where I’ve got the model in ‘see through’ mode so you can see the bones.
I know I’m going finish up the weight painting, and get a good pose next. I’m not sure what I’m going to tackle after that. I still need to see if there is a newer rigging method for 3DS Max that I can use for Funkatmyer. If not, that’s ok. I can do the one I’ve done before. It’s just going to take a bit of dedicated time to get that built, configured, skinned and weighted. Maybe now, with that test out of the way, I can get to that. We’ll see. Come back and find out.