The Sideshow - Character - GMASK

[gmask]

Here's the first image of the WIP. I'm roughing out the anatomy with spheres.

http://gmaskfx.com/legman/legmantorso.jpg

[gmask]

Here's the legs.. they still need work.


but I think I figured out that Legman is perched on a swing in a giant birdcage. I dunno if that counts as him holder something though?

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/legmanlegs.jpg

[gmask]

Your basic bird freak..

http://gmaskfx.com/legman/legmanbird.jpg

[JamesMK]

That's freaky, allright... Interesting roughing method.

[Lordrych]

wow, looks great what do you do after you get the rough together you melt all the spheres together? kinda like metaballs?

Lordrych

[gmask]

Originally posted by Lordrych
wow, looks great what do you do after you get the rough together you melt all the spheres together? kinda like metaballs?


I could boolean them together and do a smooth but that's NOT what I was actually planning to do.

<<EDIT.. actually I played around with union and smooth abit and it's problematic and would make cleaning up the geometry a nightmare.

[Amer]

interesting method indeed!

one small critique however... I would imagine that his tricep muscles would be a lot bigger than that, seeing that they carry all that weight around... looks really wrong now, likr he suddenly woke up and found his limbs switched, as opposed to being born that way.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Amer
interesting method indeed!

one small critique however... I would imagine that his tricep muscles would be a lot bigger than that, seeing that they carry all that weight around... looks really wrong now, likr he suddenly woke up and found his limbs switched, as opposed to being born that way.

Yeah the forearms are a bit spindlely as well.

[gmask]

New more powerful arms

http://gmaskfx.com/legman/legmanbird_1.jpg

[JamesMK]

This is hands down the weirdest thing I've seen in a long time! Not only the model, but the technique and the look of this last render... :surprised

That just HAS to be a good sign... !

[gmask]

Originally posted by JamesMK
This is hands down the weirdest thing I've seen in a long time! Not only the model, but the technique and the look of this last render... :surprised

That just HAS to be a good sign... !

LOL.. I take it as good sign.. FYI the rendering technique is just me screwing around with the screen capture in Photoshop. The rendering shall be more or less photoreal and witkinesque.

[Cartesius]

Yup, this is really strange and thus very, very interesting! You just got yourself a subscriber :)

/Anders

[swag]

roughing with spheres - thats very nice way gmask finding the right edge loops is now much easier (poly) - u going with nurbs patches (old school) or poly´s after roughing?

[gmask]

Originally posted by swag
roughing with spheres - thats very nice way gmask finding the right edge loops is now much easier (poly) - u going with nurbs patches (old school) or poly´s after roughing?

I haven't decided yet.. I may go with nurbs at first until I get the topology more or less laid out as edge loops are no fun in Maya.

What do you mean by "finding the right edge loops is now much easier (poly)".. maybe I has missed something?

Then I will convert them to polys and either use a smooth proxy or convert to sub-d.

[swag]

your nurbs spheres represents the skeletal muscles of your model and when you looping the muscles you have very nice deformation when animation - the skinning is much easier with nice loops :)

[gmask]

Here's Leggie in his cage. He'll be wearing a birdbeak mask .... I think that qualifies as clothing? Does standing on his hands count as holding something?

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/LegmanFG.jpg

[gmask]

Aww.. just screwing around with the environment..

http://gmaskfx.com/legman/LegmanFG_2.jpg

[gmask]

So I've started converting the model from spheres to surfaces..

After deciding on topology I am tracign the live surface of the spheres with curves. Then I loft the curves into a poly surface , then combine the lofts and merge edges. The final step is converting to Sub-D.

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/torso.jpg

[JamesMK]

Continues to be most intriguing... At first, I had a feeling that all these steps put together would constitute quite a lot of overhead - but on second thought I assume you'll get that time back because you will not have to do a lot of poly-tweaking afterwards. And the spanking clean topology makes any necessary tweaking a breeze... Hmm, very good stuff...

[Lordrych]

Wow, and it even turns out to be pretty close to correct anatomy. Alright i am loving this!!!!

Rych

[kotter]

verry impressive...

keeping my eye on this thread...

[gmask]

Originally posted by JamesMK
Continues to be most intriguing... At first, I had a feeling that all these steps put together would constitute quite a lot of overhead - but on second thought I assume you'll get that time back because you will not have to do a lot of poly-tweaking afterwards. And the spanking clean topology makes any necessary tweaking a breeze... Hmm, very good stuff...

Thanks! :beer:

Planning out the topology is the trick as it will prevent any horrendous poly issues down the line. Tracing with curves is the most tedious part but it's really not that bad...it's actually kind of fun! You can even edit the curves and it will continue to update even after the surface has been been converted to Sub-D. The only Tweak I made to the polys was along the rib cage.. I collapsed a couple of edges so that the resulting Sub-D would be less messy.

[gmask]

Okay here's this mornings progress.. The seam on the chest is a little off.. Okay I have to work on other things for awhile then maybe I can sneak back to this :cool:


http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/torso2.jpg

[Bluemilk]

Amazing technigue, kinda like z spheres but not.
Perhaps he should have a perch?

[gmask]

Originally posted by Bluemilk
Amazing technigue, kinda like z spheres but not.
Perhaps he should have a perch?

Hehe.. I was thinking the same thing about Zbrush..but I still haven't been able to get used to that program.

I was definately thinking perch.. the cage isn't working for me yet. It'll have to be a substantial perch.. he's a heavy bird but you wouldn't know anything about heavy ;)

I'm trying to keep that influence of Witkin so I need to think of something that has that kind of whimsy (for lack of a better word).. like maybe a perch made of pipes that is mounted on some sort of crude cart.

[JamesMK]

I like the feel of that volume so far:
Meaty!
Fleshy.
Somewhat tactile.

[gmask]

Okay here's the arms so far... the joining at the hip needs some work still I think

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/torsoarms.jpg

[trthing]

I must say it is a rather unusual techinique of yours: could you please elaborate your 6 steps a little bit more for this little humble admirer?

And the result is nothing less than brilliant. :applause:

[gmask]

Originally posted by trthing
I must say it is a rather unusual techinique of yours: could you please elaborate your 6 steps a little bit more for this little humble admirer?

And the result is nothing less than brilliant. :applause:

Well I guess you could pretty much do this in any app but Maya has a feature called a live surface that makes this process easy.

Basically making a surface live lets you draw curves on it... in other programs you might have to snap the points in the curve to existing vertices which is a drag.

So my approach is this.. in a clay like fashion I add little balls of clay to fill out the form in an additive scultping technique or in this case primative spheres. I elongate and scale them to better fit the surfaces and in some cases grab CV's and move them around.

I have a background in sculpture and figure drawing so this process is really intuitive for me.

Then keeping the resulting topography in mind I start to work out patches that flow with the musculature. Then loft those into a polygonal surface.

From there you combine and merge the edges on the patches and then eventually convert the surface to Sub-D to smooth it out.

I will probably use Artisan to further sculpt the resulting surfaces.

Really I think the key is to know your topology.. if you get off on the wrong foot fixing the problems can easily take more time than just restarting and area of the model.

[JamesMK]

I guess the problem now is deciding if the inner workings of the lower part of the torso is supposed to be similar to shoulders or similar to hips? How are you planning to handle it?

[DeathBrain]

Great modeling techniques Gmask....:thumbsup:

[eYadNesS]

Very nice muscles :)

[gmask]

>>>I guess the problem now is deciding if the inner workings of the lower part of the torso is supposed to be similar to shoulders or similar to hips? How are you planning to handle it?

Well I guess more like hips..otherwise I would have to twist the arms around like the Pelvis was an upside down set of shoulders. I haven't really been thinking about rigging if that's what you mean other than for posing.

I guess my biggest concern is how beleivable is the connection of the arms to the hips?

>>>Great modeling techniques Gmask....

Thanks :blush:

[gmask]

Originally posted by eYadNesS
Very nice muscles :)

Thanks :blush:

[gmask]

The thighs need more work..

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/legman_1.jpg

[gmask]

A slightly heavier Legman

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/legman_2.jpg

[JamesMK]

You're making good progress! It starts to become clear that there's something very wrong going on here (in the right kind of way!) when one tries to make sense of this character.

It's a bit like looking at an optical illusion. I mean this in the best possible way. I'm really looking forward to see this one finished.

My question about pelvis vs shoulders earlier was just about appearance rather than rigging - but I see now how you figured it would be. I guess it's the best solution. :thumbsup:

[gmask]

Here's the hand in progress.. I had to abandon the sphere rough version and make them freeform.

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/legman_hand.jpg

[gmask]

His feet..


http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/legmanfeet.jpg

[gmask]

Revised hands

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/legmanhands.jpg

[gmask]

Legman to date

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/Legman_3.jpg

[JDex]

That is "freak"in crazy, gmask...

All I want in life is to see a walk cycle... I would probably watch it in a loop, until my head explodes...

Great job so far :thumbsup:

p.s. - is it just me or does anyone else think it looks a bit like a chicken?

[gmask]

Originally posted by JDex
That is "freak"in crazy, gmask...

All I want in life is to see a walk cycle... I would probably watch it in a loop, until my head explodes...

Great job so far :thumbsup:

p.s. - is it just me or does anyone else think it looks a bit like a chicken?

LOL.. well I may have a surprise in store for you eventually but it's not a walk cycle.

Yeah he is birdlike.. it wasn't intentional but what the hey!

[JDex]

I'm walking on my hands with anticipation!!! :drool:

psst, do a walkcycle, pass it on.

[OZ]

BLUARG!!! HORRIBLE!!!!;) .....gosh!.....freeekeeee! A LOT FREEEEKEEEEE!!!!:argh: :twisted: U are kraze!

[JamesMK]

Hey, gmask - it's starting to look DARN good now! And, yes, a walkcycle would be really interesting to see :D

[gmask]

Current skin texturing test..

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/LegmanSkin.jpg

[eYadNesS]

Good Work gmask :thumbsup:

[JamesMK]

*tick tock tick tock*...

:D

[gmask]

Originally posted by JamesMK
*tick tock tick tock*...

:D

I actually did some work on his "vehicle" today.. still he needs a head..maybe some shorts or a loin cloth.

[JamesMK]

Loin cloth is good. I'm actually thinking about that very same solution... A fall-back plan at least, if I run out of time (like as if I'm not going to do that...)

[Ionized]

My god... it's horrible!!! I like it!:scream:

Very original and in theme with the contest. Are you going to texture it?

[Beechdbum]

Originally posted by JDex

p.s. - is it just me or does anyone else think it looks a bit like a chicken?
my god thats exactly what i was thinking

looking great cant wait to see it finished

[gmask]

Well well by the skin of my teeth.. here he is at last.. I promise to do an animation of him.

http://www.gmaskfx.com/legman/Legman_Final.jpg

[JamesMK]

Turned out really really good! And I love that tricycle too! And you should see a dentist about that skin on your teeth, doesn't sound normal ;)

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