HARDCORE MODELING!: 80's Cartoon: She-Ra

#101

hey felix!

no crits, just thought i drop by and say i really like where this is going.
thanks for the “how to’s”, too.

now go finish. hehhe

-r

#102

Must agree with Rasmus :stuck_out_tongue: love the “how to´s”!

cant really understand where you get all the time!! I myself have to work 8 hours a day AND spend time with the missy hehe… not much time left :stuck_out_tongue:

Keep up the good work!!

/Jonas

#103

Great stuff Felix, can’t wait to see you put all this together and you certainly earn the name detail freak :slight_smile:

The Progress updates are nice, always good to see how someone approaches certain issues…

#104

Oberyn: Thanks, Richard. Actually it looks more complicated than it is, just a bit tedious, I have to admit. Btw, next time you have trouble with some “evil” object, let me know. Maybe I can help. :slight_smile:

 FICTIS: Thanks mate! I have to say though, characters are rarely simple and need quite a bit of detail in order to have personality and character. Same goes for vehicles etc such as your space ship, which really does look great with all the detail you yourself are putting onto that thing. I dont think that takes any less patience, so I return the compliment. :)
 
 rasmusW: Many thanks, Rasmus. The "how-to's" are what I feel these challenges are all about, to share workflow-approaches, so I am doing just that. It's good to know someone appreciates them. :)
 
 energise: Actually, I am not putting much more than 3-5 hours max a day into this. Fortunately, I currently don't have the "missy-issue" to deal with. The last one was quite a pest in the end, so I'm really enjoying my solitude these days. ;)
 
 samartin: Thanks, Scott. Good to have you back in the challenge. :)

Skol!:arteest:
#105

I may have to use that sandal lace idea, if I got time to redo my sandals.
Great stuff.

#106

Razor, great update. I hope to see the completed scene in short, cant wait!

Congrats!

#107

Thanks, guys! :slight_smile:

 No picture update today. I've been busy with finishing up UV's for all objects and cleaning up the hierarchies etc for rigging. Such work, albeit rather tedious and time-consuming, doesn't really yield very interesting visual results. 
 Next update will probably be on the cape and another on the hair when I get to it. After that its rigging and posing time. 
 Also, I decided to leave textures to the end, since, considering the distance from the camera to capture the whole figure plus sword extended overhead, much texture detail wont be visible in the final 800x600 or slightly higher-res render anyways and I might even be able to get away with plain shaders on some things. I'll see when I get to it, provided I have enough time.
 
 Salute!:arteest:
#108

Looking better every day Felix,

I really liked your walkthrough of those bootstraps. I’ve printed it to put in my personal-tips-file. I’m sure I’m gonna need this knowledge one day.

I’ve also downloaded Headus UVlayout, but I can’t use it just yet. (still running Mac osX 10.4.11, waiting anxiously for 10.6 Snow Leopard)

Cheers mate :beer:

#109

Thanks a lot, Evert! I’m glad you find the info useful and am certain you wont be disappointed with UVL. :beer:

           Alrighty, here's another small update.
           
           Cape WIP:
           
           [img]http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc280/Tuxedoknek/HMC%2019%20She-Ra/SheRaCapeWIP.jpg[/img]
           
           As far as workflow goes, I started with a rectangular plane and deformed that into a trapezoid (squares and recangulars don't perform too hot as capes, for those unaware of that small tidbit of info). 
  Then I scaled a combined duplicate of the cape-clips up and placed it properly. Next I simulated the plane with Syflex, pinning every other vert of the first 8 on the top of each side to the combined clip geometry. In Live-Mode I scaled the clips down to create wrinkles on each side and moved the whole thing over the body, which I had previously made the collider.

Step 2 is the result of that, after which I edited the geometry in the back-center and on the attachment ends and re-simulated as described before a few times until I was fairly happy with the result as illustrated in step 3.

        Here's the whole thing attached to the armor etc:
           
           [img]http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc280/Tuxedoknek/HMC%2019%20She-Ra/SheRaCapeArmor.jpg[/img]
           
           As you can see, I also added a bracelet to the mix.
           
           Cheers!
#110

Looking solid Razor. Your use of dynamics is paying off in spades. How much more to do?

#111

One of my favourites entrys, your modeling its great, lots of detail and the fact that your posting the steps like a tutorial its very helpfull.

So thanks, congrats and good luck.

Cheers.

#112

WyattHarris: Thanks, Wyatt. I try to use all tools at my disposal to their max. :slight_smile: As far as what more to do, there’s rigging, skinning and posing and hair (which is gonna be tedious and time-consuming as hell, if I dont go the sculpted-geometry-road), as well as, if time permits, texturing and some FX. Being a spoiled XSI-CDK-brat in the rigging/skinning dept, I decided I could use the practice and am currently building a simple, but fully functional animation-rig in Maya. I should be done with that sometime today and will start skinning then, which is a bitch in Maya as compared to XSI, so I am not really looking forward to that. I’ll post a pic of the rig and whatever else I can wrap up today, in the time that remains after hiding eggs etc for the family, by tomorrow.

 JMART: Thanks a lot for the compliments and comments. :) You're quite welcome, I'm glad you find the descriptions informative.
#113

C’mon Felix, I’m dying to see this all come together! Been a great thread to follow and always nice to see how others approach certain dynamic challenges.

#114

Sounds like we are in the same boat. Both in work left and the eggs. :smiley: Good luck.

#115

samartin: lol I guess you’re going to have to wait until Wednesday night for that. As was to be expected, I didn’t get anything significant done yesterday and hope I’ll be able to put in more time today, but there’s still more holiday-related family duties callin’. I’m glad you found this thread interesting and I can only return the compliment in regards to yours. :slight_smile:

           WyattHarris:Glad to know I'm not the only one. It's gonna be crammin' time for us during the next few days. Good luck to you too. :D
          
          
      Here's the rig I mentioned before:
          
          [img]http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc280/Tuxedoknek/HMC%2019%20She-Ra/SheRaRig.jpg[/img]
          
          Nothing fancy or majorly sophisticated, but it was good practice and should be more than adequate to get the job done. The arms are FK, save the clavicles which are IK-controlled like the spine, neck and legs, the latter of which also have a classic reverse foot setup. The fingers are animated via Set Driven Keys on the wrist control, as is the jaw via the neck control. I might add some influence objects if I'm not happy with skeleton weighting alone.

Also, I thought I’d mention I just started using David Walden’s skinningTools.mel (still the old version as available on highend3d) and have to say they almost make the weighting process in Maya as pleasant and intuitive as in XSI, but that’s still just almost. :wink: I can wholeheartedly recommend them to any and all Maya users.

          Happy Easter to everybody! :)

Edit: After my initial enthusiasm, I need to make my previous statement about skinning in Maya with skinningTools.mel a bit more relative. While David Walden’s tools represent a huge improvement over the default tools, the whole process is still a tedious, time-consuming, unintuitive bitch in Maya and a far cry from the elegant efficiency and speed, the same thing can be achieved with far superior results, in much less time in XSI. At least for me, the old credo, albeit admittedly a bit weakened, still appliles: Skinning in Maya = frustration galore!

#116

hello man,

your work is impresive, strong skill :wink: Cant wait see final pic. Good luck :thumbsup:

#117

Just goes to show you have the patience of a saint whereas I don’t! Impressed you setup a IK/FK rig too, keep it going

#118

man you are hardcore!modeling,texturing and now rigging!:bowdown: keep on going! :bounce:

#119

samartin: lol Neither am I particularly patient nor is there anything saintly about me. :smiley:

razeverius: Many thanks for the compliment and encouragment!

For those interested in working with skinningTools.mel in Maya, I put a little edit in my previous post.

Cheers!

#120

Looking great, but your gonna have to hurry. I realy think yours is the best poly model of the whole challenge, Id hate to see you miss the deadline. So major effort.