Nelly Luckett : BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester

Today I completed the side and back initial rigging for Ellie. As before, these will need additional blend shapes and other alterations to make the rig work completely, however this is the next step and doesn't form part of the initial rigging. This is the Side View rigging and skinning demonstration This is the Back View rigging and skinning demonstration

Today I completed the assembly on the front view of the zombie. This is getting faster every time I complete it so I feel like I am making progress. I have decided that I will only model and rig the left and front versions of this character. The rear will the very similar to the front, and the right view will mirror the left, so this way I can progress quicker and move on to working on my own characters. So here are the two views. Rigging to come soon!

Today I worked more on the ship model for my animation. This included simplifying some of the geometry. This was the rendered result. I'm quite happy with this, and the geometry is looking much better than it was. With the lighting and shadow too, the boat is looking a way I am quite happy with.

I finished redoing the model in today's Maya class

After a discussion with Alan, the initial version of the ship's main body was wrong due to the geometry not flowing and this would cause issues with UVing and texturing the model. Therefore I restarted the modelling with planes, and extruding these to create a track that I could then fill in. This will allow a more successful process.  Unsmoothed Smoothed

Today I got the rough blocking for the rest of the body of the ship done. This still needs a few tweaks but it getting there. I am a bit confused as to what to do with the top of it as this is something that simply doesn't look right. I think I'll bring this up with Alan on friday. The masts and sails will be made as 3D elements as otherwise they would not work in terms of the sails and flag moving in the wind.

Today I began the modelling of my pirate ship. In realised that I made this a little frustrating for myself due to the irregular and stylistic way that I chose to draw the ship.  Overall I’m happy with how this is looking so far, I applied coloured lamberts on he windows to make it easier to see how they will look roughly when textured. I intend to continue this tomorrow as well.  A little note is that the reason the orthograph is slightly pink in the background is that this helps me model more easily as I struggle with black lines on white paper. Making this a pale pink makes it easier for me to see. 

Today we were learning our first bits of how nCloth works. We did this using a cape as an example. This should prove very helpful for making some elements of clothing work in future projects.

Today we began our maya class with posing Moom within 5 minutes again. This was my result. I had used the wrong controls in the spine, causing an issue in the pelvis and the back to become over stretched. His hand also clipped through his knee, which clearly would be painful for anyone!!!! Below is the corrected version. Dynamics class Today's main lesson was on using Dynamics to rig awkward or unusual elements in characters such as tails, tentacles and trunks.  This dynamic system using nHair reacts to a Spline IK curve to create reactive movement in relation to a control or other movement within the scene.

We had another moom speed posing task today. I made yet another really difficult choice for myself. This was the image I used and the initial 5 minute pose. Although the pose I put Moom into wasn't necessarily the exact same as the pose, it was better given Moom's limitations. There were a couple of little issues; the hands were too far back to support the upper body. The heels were also at too dramatic of an angle. I corrected these. IK/FK Switch In the main lesson we were learning how to create an IK/FK switch to move between different types of controls in order to allow different types of animation. This required thinking about the controls in different ways. One was using an IK (like an elastic band) and the other was FK (individually controlling joints). We then created an on off switch to control these behaviours, allowing different types of animation to take place in the same model.  This is the skinned model, showing the IK controls and the hierarchy...

Today we were working on more relationship nodes for rigging, particularly squash and stretch. We started off the session with completing the ribbon spine that we created during the Jet Pack Jones tutorials, however this was never completed as part of this process as it requires a deeper understanding of rigging than we had at that time. This shows the node relationships that are used to create the changes in volume of the torso when it is stretched or squashed. We then moved on to a tutorial that explains how to have knees and elbows work efficiently without using a pole vector to stop them from flipping backwards. This will be very useful for any uncomplicated characters who do not require full rigging as it obviously reduces rigging time, but also animation required for each character in terms of these elements. This is the node network for the custom attribute created to control the knee behaviour. Sadly we didn't have Moom speed posing this week, however I...

Today was our first Maya class of third year. Where has the time gone! We are going to start off all classes by doing a Moom speed posing task. We are given 5 minutes to pose moom into a position of our choice. He is then assessed as either being fine, needing to go to A&E or being dead, depending on how much his joints are damaged. This is the position I decided to model Moom into. Needless to say I hadn't exactly made this easy for myself, but I did my best within the time constraints. This was the result of my first attempt. He looks ok from a distance, however there are some joint issues. He has broken wrists and a glitch in the skinning over his stomach where the position has become too extreme. So after Alan's feedback I decided to fix the pose, and try and repair all his injuries, and I am much happier with the final result. The main part of the class was based on using multiplication/division nodes to create a squash and stretch beha...