Character: Yattering

[JavonX]

Looking good
To me the mesh should be fine when animating, only thing is that the ears are not attached to the head but I guess you'll fix that soon.

[LowJacK]

Your geo for facial animation looks fine. The edge loops around the mouth and eyes will make it easy to achieve a wide range of expressions. You may want to add some geometry to the forehead and around the ears, depending on what expressive range you wish him to achieve. Really a judgement call though.

My questions, and reason why I wanted to reply revolve more around the personal vision or artistic expression. Not really something that I can critique because it is your vision, not my own, plus I have never read the story in which you are animating to.

To me, this character looks almost childlike or young adolescent. By the sounds of the story, it seems to have a comical element to it yet some sadistic evil underlying motives.

Based off of Clive Barkers writing, should this character have more of a dark/evil personality/appearance?

[nimajneb]

Hey Lowjack,

That's something that I've often thought about. You're not the first person I've come across to say that he looks too "nice". A friend of mine made the comment a while earlier that he was a handsome orc. Here's my take on it.

I think that when you make a face that's "evil" or "good" you limit the characters range. In the Yattering & Jack, most of the story is told from the imp's perspective. Clive really gets behind the Yattering's eyes, and you really do come to like and empathize with him as an anti-hero. To that end, as I've built and rebuilt him, I've had it in mind to make him have a face that could express a range of human emotions, not just negative ones. In this neutral pose, he's kind of a blank slate.

It's pleasing to me in a way that you read him the way you do. That means when he turns around with a wry smile and a cat bursts into flames you'll not be expecting it. He can surprise with his performance.

Back to basics. The brow. Yes I agree. I've been in the process of adding there and with the horns we need a bit more. to make it flow, and supply enough geo to make the brow slide over the bone, so to speak. That's has just been added to the to do list.

Thanks.

Javon_X,

Thanks for the praise. Yes ears will be attaching soon. Got pulled down to the hands for a bit of tweaking.

Thanks (again)

[nimajneb]

Here's the most recent, am ready to call this finished and begin skinning, unless someone wants to yell STOP!. Concerns are still the same; critique modeling for animation specifically. Other comments and concerns also welcome. Thanks for your time.

http://www.nimajneb.com/images/yat_f_012104.jpg http://nimajneb.com/images/yat_l_012104.jpg http://nimajneb.com/images/yat_k_012104.jpg http://nimajneb.com/images/yat_pers_3q_012104.jpg

[nimajneb]

Here's the most recent, am ready to call this finished and begin skinning, unless someone wants to yell STOP!. Concerns are still the same; critique modeling for animation specifically. Other comments and concerns also welcome. Thanks for your time.

http://www.nimajneb.com/images/yat_hd_f_012104.jpg
http://www.nimajneb.com/images/yat_hd_l_012104.jpg
http://www.nimajneb.com/images/yat_hd_3q_012104.jpg
http://www.nimajneb.com/images/yat_hd_3q_s_012104.jpg

[nimajneb]

No bads, no goods, no indifferents? I assume the lack of response means no major problems, ok to go ahead?

[royalwin]

I know it's been a couple days since your last post, but here's a couple things to take or leave. The placement of the jaw seems a bit forward. The pivot point for it would be well infront of the ear as opposed to slightly below and in front of the ear. As a result, it might make the jaw's arc in animation a little odd. The second point, a minor one, is that if this mesh is a cage meant to be smoothed as in your renders, and animated, the number of edges for the amount of detail seems high to me, with the resulting extra work when rigging. The edges which form the cross sections of the arms and legs are tubular. By that I mean that they are quite perpendicular to the limb, and the length-wise edge loops usually run right along the limbs (with the exception of the lovely twist in the forearms). In my experience this also leads to higher poly counts than are truly necessary to define the surface, and somewhat blocky limbs. In the thighs in particular some twisting edges could add greatly to the impression of muscles in the leg and the sense of the differently sized and shaped muscles of the upper leg and their different ways of attaching to the knee and spanning the joints. My two cents on a nice looking model.

[nimajneb]

royalwin,

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to look into moving the jaw back per your comment. As for the edge/polycount, that's resultant of my distrust for smoothing, and inexperience. As I've learned to model, I've often heard it said that smoothing should act as an apprentice, basically finishing the work that you lay down as "master". To that end, I take things a bit far when modeling so that I can feel more sure about what I'll get when smoothed. Simplification is something i need to work on. As to the twisting of edgeloops along the limbs (specifically the thighs), ammusingly enough, I spent a good deal of time doing just that earlier in the piece working on the vastus lateralis, the quads, sartorius etc. Only to find that when I then started playing with ACT (Advanced Character Tools), that getting these items modeled in the skin to match up with the features subsurface was problematic. So I totally trashed the legs, and reworked them in a simpler topology so that when I use ACT, the sub-surface deformers will have a regular surface to work on. That may work or may not be a correct solution. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be building a subskin and then bones and muscles so we'll see how it goes.

Thanks again for your comments. I'm working pretty much in total isolation, so any help I get is greatly appreciated.

[royalwin]

Ah! ACT, Mark Snoswell will be so happy:)
If youare using that for the deformations, a more regular mesh might indeed be better. As to the lack of trust of the smoothing, I would postulate that its just a matter of understanding what a bicubic smoothing algorythm does with a mesh. Most of the people who are anal about aesthetically pleasing meshes, nice edge loops, and quads are just expressing the qualities of a mesh which make it deform well and smooth in a predictable, controllable manner. I liken the edges defining a mesh to the vertices of a spline. Though you can use a large number to define a smooth curve, it really ony takes two for every "S". Now, even with that said, in the final analysis what looks good works. It's just fun to talk about this stuff. DOn't you agree? Anyway, my 2 cents about what has worked for me:)
Keep up the good work.

Royal

[nimajneb]

Yattering CGSkin Test...

Attaching DIVX AVI file that shows a walkcycle loop of the Yattering Character I've been working on with ACT, CGSkin, and Character Animation Tech's CAT Demo. One of the most interesting things I'm discovering about using the CGSkin workflow is portability of the Skinning process. What I mean to say is that by placing the subskin in between the mesh and the rig, the rig can be replaced with relative impunity. I've built the Yattering's subskin around this idea. I orginally had built around a standard Biped, but when I discovered CAT, I decided I'd like to try it with Yattering. So I simply unlinked the various Proximal Distal helpers, and relinked them to the CAT Rig. No envelopes to redo, no weighting to fix. Really nice.

The subskin is primarily cgtubes, with a couple of exceptions. The head deforms with the head node of the rig, and the genitalia deforms with a low res mesh snapshot that has Flex on it. Future plans include: ACT Bone & Muscle Rig, and a morph/ACT driven facial animation rig.

Critique for Deformation. The movement is 100 CAT's not mine. Very nice out of the box motion.

Yattering CGSkin Test (http://nimajneb.com/images/yat_cgskin_test_032004.avi)

[operativem]

Very nice work, though his jaw and mouth look very human. I think if you made them "scarier", his appearance would improve. It reminds me of superman's jaw or buzz lightyear for some reason. Just my 2cts, very, very nice overall. */Mike

[Nolita]

The Yattering and Jack is one of my favorite Clive Barker short stories. From his books of blood. I think you might have more fun animating from Jaqueline Ess but hell what do I know? I'm not posting here because I'm familiar with 3D. I'm posting here because I'm familiar with Clive Barker. I'm hoping this is for yourself because I'm not sure what Clive would say about it. Know this much though, there is a graphic novel of it and having read/looked at it I think you could use it for reference. For some reason I think the legs should be longer and more sinewy. I mean the way the Yattering jumps about the place I imagine his legs as being rather froglike. Still he's a demon so I'm seeing long and sinewy for a small very agile demon. It's about a zillion times better than I could do considerring I don't do 3D. So these are just aesthetic rather than technical comments. Would love to see him skinned though.

Worry lines! This may sound crazy but he needs worry lines. You know those creases in the forehead from too much worrying. He's a very worried and highly strung little fellow. He has a boss to answer to, and quotas to meet. I think he needs worry lines. Once again it's all aesthetic...so just pick and choose any or none.

[nimajneb]

When I get to the point where I'm finished enough to show Mr. Barker, I intend to contact him and ask permission to do the short. At that time, I've got to have a treatment of the story ready, some samples of a "finished" Yattering, with some animation tests. There's no sense bothering the man with pleas without having something to show to back it up.

Secondly, I'm aware of the graphic novel you're speaking of. Recently came by a copy of it, but I'm about a year and a half into the project (only get to work on this in my spare time, so no slacker disparagements please :)). I like Mr. Bolton's (the artist who colaborated on Y&J with Clive) redition of Yattering. Mine is my personal interpretation of the character. Hence I've really made no effort to change him to match the book. That may change in the future however. For now, I'm sticking with my stockier Yattering.

On the matter of worry lines, don't worry:) I'm on it. See that extra mesh in the forhead? It's there for blendshapes that will wrikle the brow. The facial rig is on the to do list, but when you model, you always do so from a neutral pose.

Thanks for your comments.

[Nolita]

I s-o-o-o wasn't trying to disparage your work. To the contrary it's very good. Thanks for understanding that my comments were purely aesthetic and explaining the mesh to me. I understand that it takes time to perfect a model. Though I'm not proficient in 3D I have checked out some tutorials at 3D cafe and believe me when I say the ones that state they took a couple of hours to finish look like they only took a couple of hours to finish. In all fairness I've noticed from book signings that Clive Barker does appreciate fan art, or rather art inspired by his literary work. I do think that once it's complete he would love to see it, short or no short, he really does seem to appreciate the creative process regardless of art form, but then I'm sure you already knew that.

Good Luck.

[Dazza]

Ok,i allways thought i was not the only one who was drawn to this story,with two eyes firmly placed on the little git Yattering....

Ahhhh...... but i did read the novel.....and the graphic novel....and so after i read the novel adaptation,and thought that this must have got character approvall from barker himself.....so my design was on the novel.....heeees drawn so well.....so well.

im glad u got a penis in it......this guy is an 18 rateing.....so dont hold back........He`s not Pixar.....!(can you imagine the Pixar cg crowd....getting a look at the yattering bound to the house for months on end,looking out of the window ,across the street to the young widow brushing her hair naked...almost teasing him,his sexual frustration turns to cavernous anger as he is interupted.....buy the scratch scratching of Feddys claws on the carpet......BiiiiiG SPllllllllllllllllllatttttttttttttttt.....
He heeee!

nice movement.....im gonaa go with act eventually.

I will do one scene live action.

Best of luck.......Yattering and Jack will live!

Cat Lovers out there.....sorry.... your not gonna like this one.

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