DracoDralion
10-23-2007, 05:55 PM
Hello,
I am planning to do an animation about a young woman transforming into a dragon. I would like to ask you for some technical advice concerning this "transforming" part.
I had a few ideas in mind on how to do this:
- Blending: This could be used for most of the transformation part. The hands/feet transforming into claws, tail/neck growing, head transforming, etc. This method can’t be used for the wings unfortunately. The wings will have to grow from the shoulder area. The woman would have only a few polygons on the shoulders, while the wings need a lot more polygons.
- Z-brush: To solve this problem I have been thinking to use Z-brush. Although I’m not entirely sure if this would be possible. Although Z-brush works with displacement maps, I think there need to be quite a lot of polygons for the wings. Besides, I have no experience with Z-brush.
- Little trick: If Z-brush is not an option I was thinking of a little trick. Since my young woman would have very long hair I could hide some smaller wings under need the hair of the woman and use the blending method to let them grow.
- Scripting/particles: Rather not. But if you have any information on that, it's always welcome (woman disappearing in a cloud of dust and form it into a dragon figure was one of the options). Although, I would like to keep it more “graphical”.
What I would like to ask you now is which different techniques you think could be used, if there are any good books/magazines/tutorials on these techniques, and just whatever you know/think of it. Basically, all help is welcome! Btw, I’m used to work with Softimage/XSI, but I assume that this makes no big difference on the techniques.
I hope you can be of any help, thanks in advance already.
Regards
I am planning to do an animation about a young woman transforming into a dragon. I would like to ask you for some technical advice concerning this "transforming" part.
I had a few ideas in mind on how to do this:
- Blending: This could be used for most of the transformation part. The hands/feet transforming into claws, tail/neck growing, head transforming, etc. This method can’t be used for the wings unfortunately. The wings will have to grow from the shoulder area. The woman would have only a few polygons on the shoulders, while the wings need a lot more polygons.
- Z-brush: To solve this problem I have been thinking to use Z-brush. Although I’m not entirely sure if this would be possible. Although Z-brush works with displacement maps, I think there need to be quite a lot of polygons for the wings. Besides, I have no experience with Z-brush.
- Little trick: If Z-brush is not an option I was thinking of a little trick. Since my young woman would have very long hair I could hide some smaller wings under need the hair of the woman and use the blending method to let them grow.
- Scripting/particles: Rather not. But if you have any information on that, it's always welcome (woman disappearing in a cloud of dust and form it into a dragon figure was one of the options). Although, I would like to keep it more “graphical”.
What I would like to ask you now is which different techniques you think could be used, if there are any good books/magazines/tutorials on these techniques, and just whatever you know/think of it. Basically, all help is welcome! Btw, I’m used to work with Softimage/XSI, but I assume that this makes no big difference on the techniques.
I hope you can be of any help, thanks in advance already.
Regards