Alien Dacer

[Apollux]

Close Up of the head... yeap, halves aren't glued together yet.

[Apollux]

Ok, I had been a little lazy these days, so there isn' t much progress to show. As you can see hands and feet are done. So are the inner space of the mouth and the eyeballs.

About the eyes, I want to put eyelids on them, how would you procede? The Comic way (lattice deformation) or the RVK way (morphing targets) ?

[Apollux]

Another head close-up.

Hey! , feedback is really appreciated:wavey:

[Apollux]

Almost 200 views and no a single reply :shrug: damm!.

If it is so bad don't be afraid to tell me. Withoud critique how is one supposed to improve?

[kotter]

well I think you should shorten his legs and arms, loose the ears and nose and change his stomach (looks kinda' wierd).

At least that's how I like my aliens :D

I've attached an alien of my own, wich I wanted to look a bit cartoony. (sorry for the poor quality)

[kotter]

the post got doubled... sorry

[Tommi]

Ah you use Blender... :)

Your Alien still lacks a lot of detail. He doesn't seem to have eyesockets... His Arms and legs are too thin, so he looks more like a robot than an organic alien being...

It's pretty hard to do organic modelling in Blender. Though it is possible - you need to put more effort into it. But maybe you like it the way it is so I'd like to see him animated (I never figured out character animation in Blender very well... :shrug: ).

The way I did a character in Blender was with help of hand drawn sketches I used as backdrop, then I created a front view and side view outline of it with curves. After that I created geometry vertex by vertex, polygon by polygon. Mainly with help of the extrude function. That takes a lot of time, patience and work.

There is also a way with Metaballs to create organic meshes. But I've ever had the feeling not to gain full control over the desired result... But this kind of alien isn't very complex in it's shape - especially the head. So it is more important to pay attention to the torso, arms and legs.

Oh, don't forget setting the eye balls to smooth in "Edit buttons"!

I'm looking forward to see some updates :thumbsup:


:wavey:

[Apollux]

well I think you should shorten his legs and arms, loose the ears and nose and change his stomach (looks kinda' wierd).

Your Alien still lacks a lot of detail. He doesn't seem to have eyesockets... His Arms and legs are too thin, so he looks more like a robot than an organic alien being...

Haha ;) It is funny to see how an idea is translated from the concept draws into the model. Yes, when was doing the firsts draws I was aimming for something more like kotter's alien, but since I'm not very good at hand drawing I decided I would draw the Alien's skeleton and then draw flesh/cloth on top of it.... but then I realised I liked the way it looked, so that's how it came to be so thinn.

Besides, since he is a dancer and IS GOING TO DANCE like crazy, I was thinking about real-life dancers and models and you see they are mostly skinny and tall (that is how they seem to me). So that's why he is like that.

I attached the orinal concept sketches... I don't have a Scanner, so I used my digital camera instead.

BTW: Kotter, I love your alien :applause:

[Apollux]

Tommi,

There are many ways for doing organic modeling in Blender (as you already know) Mesh, S-Mesh, NURBS, Surfaces (never really got the difference between Nurbs and Surfaces in blender), Meatballs... I had even seen characters done by spined 'n skinned curves (you have to be really masochism for doing that) :eek:

For my personal taste, the vertex-by-vertex is the best way (sure it takes f****ing forever to finish) but you have more control and you are more likely to end with a cleaner and more efficient mesh.

Meatballs are veeery good for organics, but you need a hell of a computer to use them. Let's say that the bleading-edge intel CPU will have a hard time with something as an animated T-Rex, for example.

As for character animation, in version 2.20 of Blender the old bone/ik system was trashed and rewrited... now they are called Armatures.

In a nutshell: the old system was very simply to set-up (almost touching no-brainner level) but you would had a hard-time at animation time because of unnatural/undesired deformations. The Armature approach is more dificult to set-up but It allows more refined control, like rotation constraints, weight painting, variable influence of various bones over the same vertex, and so...., plus it can be used on the real-time game engine, something unthinkable for the older system. (No more empty-tracking tricks for getting human-like deformations, i.e. "SkateGirl, the Game" ).

Here (http://www.blender3d.org/UsingBlender/character_animation.php) you have the "addendum" for the original manual covering the new armatures system, but it is very academic, like the definition for a new comunications protocol standart.

Here (http://mmaigrot.free.fr/didac-blender/ikas/ikas-eng/ik-intro.php) you have a good user friendly tutorial covering the new system.

[kotter]

just watching your alien again and i think you should
put the arms a bit higher (they look good on your sketch). It would look more natural, and you should do something about his elbows and knees. Try adding a little more detail there.

post some updates soon :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Tommi]

Hi Appolux!

Originally posted by Apollux
[B]I had even seen characters done by spined 'n skinned curves (you have to be really masochism for doing that) :eek:

Mhm, I didn't know that Blender can do that. Actually that's a comfortable way of modelling - at least in Lightwave. I watched a video tutorial by SplineGod and that's mad how fast you can model with splines...

Originally posted by Apollux
[B]
For my personal taste, the vertex-by-vertex is the best way (sure it takes f****ing forever to finish) but you have more control and you are more likely to end with a cleaner and more efficient mesh.


;) Exactly! What a pity that box modelling is impossible in Blender, that's also a good and powerful way


Originally posted by Apollux
[B]
Meatballs


:surprised: LOL......... mhm I'm hungry


Originally posted by Apollux
[B]
are veeery good for organics, but you need a hell of a computer to use them. Let's say that the bleading-edge intel CPU will have a hard time with something as an animated T-Rex, for example.


Mhm - after modelling the T-Rex with metaballs you want to freeze the model then it won't be any problem to animate him :shrug:


After takeing a look at your sketches, I'd say "mission accomplished"!
:thumbsup:

Now I want to see the animation! :scream:
:wavey:

[Apollux]

Hi again!

I had even seen characters done by spined 'n skinned curves (you have to be really masochism for doing that)

Yep, that is a cool way for doing things like a vase or a chessboard piece, there is not denying in that. You get the same result as if you make a mesh outline and then use the "spine" tool, but with the advantage that you don't end with a mesh object but with a mathematical object instead.

..... Hoever, the model that I saw done that was a COMPLETE HUMAN HEAD!!! It is on an online tutorial and just to give you an idea of the complexity of the process, the first step was to take a handheld videocamera and do a rotoscope video of the human model, wich them was used as an animated background for Blender's modeling windowns. (3D Window). That is masochism!!!!

Anyways, here is the first attempt of eyelids.


Almost forgot: Box modeling is possible with Blender, just configure your view ports and the setting for the "Beauty" tool. Then you just need to use Extrude and beauty subdivision. Don't use normal or smooth subdivision!!!!

Does anyone knows for a way of changing the default key names inside the IPO windows? I would like to have "Left Eyelid Blink" and "Closed Mouth Smiling" instead of "Key1" and "Key2".... "Key..n":shrug:

[Apollux]

Here is another choice for the eyelids. My brother keeps saying it is better.... but the first one seems more original and unexpected. If you were the one modeling, wich one would you choose?

[MrMunkily]

I must say that I grew frustrated with blender's modeling tools a while ago. I've mostly migrated to wings - But you are right, you can do some basic things with splines easily. The troouble is that doing more complex thing runs up against problems, like subdividing requires that you go and reshape the object, and you can't skin curves with different #'s of knots

anyhow, box modeling is lots more fun in wings, in my opinion.

[Tommi]

Originally posted by Apollux
Almost forgot: Box modeling is possible with Blender, just configure your view ports and the setting for the "Beauty" tool. Then you just need to use Extrude and beauty subdivision. Don't use normal or smooth subdivision!!!!

Ooops... you're right... :D


I like the eyelids!

[Apollux]

Well... the long over-due update of my little friend.

Here are some stills from it first animation test.

http://www.freewebs.com/apollux/Animation_Test_01_B.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/apollux/Animation_Test_01_B.jpg
and

http://www.freewebs.com/apollux/Animation_Test_02_B.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/apollux/Animation_Test_02_B.jpg

If the images don't show just copy and paste the URLs on a new browser window. Of course you can see (and critique) the whole animation test (http://www.freewebs.com/apollux/AnimationTest_0001_0180.avi) .

Format: Avi-jpeg compressed at 95% of quality.

By the way.... this is my FIRST character animation and my FIRST use of Blender's Non Linear Animation (NLA) system. :bounce:

Tell me what you think of him. - So far I noticed the strange elbow movement and the left feet been soaked into the floor. What else can you spot?

I'll start working on the facial expressions as soon as the rigging is de-buged.

[Apollux]

You can also check him here

http://www.freewebs.com/apollux/galleryworkinprogress.htm

just scroll down the page.

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