Character: Yawshack Mouse

[Anubis-Halil]

You have to make Nose.
Good and simple work You should make long tooth too.
Something wrong, but i think you can see wrongs of your work.

hah. i realy like his name. Yawshack Mouse :) i know a lot of Yawshack human.

C u dude.

[Tughan]

I completed rest of the body today. I pay special attention and spent more time on modeling hands because I may be use it for my upcoming cartoon characters. So getting a good flow was very important. Anyway, there is only his tail left for now. And teets. :)

Any comments about body proportions? Or head? Eyes?

Thanks

[Anubis-Halil]

good progress dude keep it up
i wanna see the body shaded.

[Tughan]

Well... I have a doubt about the legs. See, I will use some "squasing and stretching" animations on this little guy. So I want to keep his shape simple and rounder. But nevertheless I can't help myself to model little details, bulges etc. :) I have to decide which one to continue. Baby looking legs? Or simple looking legs? Any idea?

Also, should I make his legs shorter? But don't forget that he'll jump and run though. :D

[hesido]

I like the bulgy one more, but you can go with sth in between the not bulgy and bulgy one (bulgyyyone geldiii, bulgyyyone geldiii..)

[Tughan]

Hello there... again. I was a bit busy with some weird things. My computer stroke by a lighting last night and my modem exploded for example. :D Anyway, now I'm back to take care my little mouse.

I've been making some SSS tests with Mental Ray's Skin Shader. After some tweaks, texture painting, and unwrap stuff, (which is I haven't done before) here is the what I come up with...

Any crits are welcome as always. Thanks.

[hesido]

Good job. You're on the right track. Please rig it asap and show us some crazy poses! (and we don't even need sss shaders to appreciate it :) )

[oshiroii]

Little bit too much SSS imo, you could have about this amount of SSS in the ears, just tune it down a bit, but it doesn't work for the hand, looks like there are no bones in it. I don't think there should be any at the mouth and the ankles, the tail should be tuned down also, maybe just a tiny bit at the edges or at the end of the tail, but not this much.

Looking good :)

[Tughan]

Hi oshiroii, thanks for the comments man. Looks like I spent too much sss for a mouse. :) I'll try to paint a map for SSS locations. That should work...

[Tughan]

I'm back. :wavey:

I was working on rigging this little guy for a while. Actually making a simple rig doesn't take much time to create. But I'm trying to make a "squashy & stretchy" rig and also making it easy to animate is taking my time. Like I said, this is going to be a Disney style cartoony animation... I hope. ;) You may see my first rig test in that thread. (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=208506) Thanks to my friend Eek gave me some "precious" tips regarding my stretchy leg test rig.

I'll post some test video clips soon. :wip:

[Tughan]

Here are two test video file. rig_test_03.avi (http://www.tughan.com/forums/rig_test_03.avi) (45kb) and rig_test_04.avi (http://www.tughan.com/forums/rig_test_04.avi) (147kb)

I wanted to use a FK spine control, but also make it stretchy. After some struggling with constraints & other confusing but amusing things, I noticed that making it FK (opposite to leg setup) and strechy is very tricky. :D So I've used Reaction Manager to make a stretchy spine, as you can see in rig_test_04.avi (http://www.tughan.com/forums/rig_test_04.avi)

Any C&C is welcome...

[hesido]

Hey Tughan, good job, when will you make an animation with a script?

[biode]

Dude, I still agree with Anubis, cutesy up that nose! Expression will make

this character. Otherwise, yer doin OK.

cheers

[Tughan]

Hesido: I'll make it after the character is fully rigged. Poor thing doesn't have arm and skull bone yet. :)

Biode: Actually I wanted to make a pointy nose, it looks just like a classic mouse profile. But as you said pointy shapes doesn't looks very cute. You have to make "round" shapes to look more cute.

Isn't this cute already?:)

[giraffe3d]

hi my friend :)
u r improving your modelling skills very well and making very good models :)
very good modelling :)
unfortunately cannot watch rig tests now :( dont know why

[Tughan]

Hey, nice to see you there Giraffe (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=159688). Glad you liked it. I think I'll modify his nose a little bit after I finish rigging.

Speaking of rig, I nearly completed it. Actually I could've finish it weeks ago, but you know I'm not trying to create a ordinary Inverse Kinematics setup. Combining it with Squash & Stretch and IK/FK switch made me dumbstuck. :D Anyway, it's going slowly but surely. Thanks to my friend Eek and Harvey helping me along the way. I'll try to post some screen capture video soon. To see the rig in action... :)

[Tughan]

Hi again!
Another nice update for our little mouse. I'm happy to tell you that rigging is completed. It was pretty cheerful to work and struggle through a complex rigging process. Now this little guy can shake his "stretching" limbs like crazy! Here is a quick animation test for you to see it in action. http://www.tughan.com/forums/Fare_Test_Jump.mov (313kb)

Any C&C are welcome. (funny, It's always welcome, but I don't get it very often... I'm staring to guess my animations it so perfect that beyond any criticism heh heh. :p )

[Tughan]

I've been experimenting different ways to annoy myself by getting involved with maxScript lately. I must remember that making up expressions like "stay between ball.Z and box.Z damnit!" don't work in maxscript. One little typo, and it explodes like a pumpkin! It's really frustrating. But so much fun, really...

I'll try to explain every step that making of stretchy rig. Legs are easy enough. Arms are a bit tricky if you want it to be FK/IK and sugar on top of it. I'm working on rigging a stretchy spine right now, which is why I have to use expression to customize it the way I like. Hope to make it happen end of this year hehe. :)

Stay tuned...

[Tughan]

Last night, when it's around 5:30AM that I was just about to sleep while trying to avoid thinking some numbers and expressions echoing inside my brain. Then suddenly I came up with an idea! An obvious, and simple way to rig the spine just the way I was trying to do with expressions over some days. It was so exciting really. I almost jump out from bed if it wasn't dawn, cold and scary. :) Anyway, I just tried it first thing on this morning and it worked pretty pretty pretty pretty good. All I've done is making a point helper at pelvis bone, position constrain it between neck (which is also stretchable) and hips control object and make it "Keep Initial Offset" so that it stays in it's "default" place. Now I can link 2nd Spine IK's helper to this point and it stays between middle/hip area no matter how much I stretch the spine. I think I still need to use expression for the upper part of the spine though. Not seem to possible trying same thing twice in one hierarchy. But it's not big deal anyway. I could just move on...

[Tughan]

Hi,

All rig and skin work is done now. Here is a test animation to celebrate it. :bounce:
http://www.tughan.com/wip/mouse/rig_test_08.avi

You may check the production progress at http://www.tughan.com/wip/mouse/index.htm

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