blogger? more like frogger

I've just made some adjustments to the moustache and hair. I added some more edgeloops across the moustache to help keep its shape a little. The hair could probably use some more structure as well and it's not quite finished (gaps where it connects to the head) but I don't think I have the time. I've adjusted where the hair sits behind the ear (where the ear will go). We are planning on setting up and rendering the turntable at the Thursday workshop or earlier. A majority of the modelling is done - we've still just got the rest of the jacket (the fluffy details are a little finnicky to model), combining the vehicle parts, and the 3D ear model + attachment. Jasper has combined the vehicle parts. There were a few parts that had too many edgeloops such as the wheel bars(?) which would have made rendering even lengthier so I've reduced some objects and deleted some duplicated objects that I think I've managed to identify. Antonio's parts have some topology i...

Monday I've finished modelling the hair. I've managed to avoid any triangles or n-gons although I'll need to connect it to the scalp a bit better (if I find the time) and that might involve some triangles. These would mostly be in hidden spots such as behind the ear and near the nape of the neck. Modelled the inside of the mouth. I'll stop it here because the back of his mouth will mostly be covered by the teeth. I mostly felt I needed to model the interior since the inside of the cheeks would be showing. Will probably need to model gums but I'll save this for if I have time since it's quite an unnoticeable detail. Modelled tear ducts. I made the neck 16 sides and managed to resolve an existing triangle in a kinda rough way I think but it doesn't matter too much since it's in a hidden area. I did adjusted the body's neck to be 16 sides as well. I was having a lot of trouble with parts of the head rotating, moving and scaling separately when I tried t...

Shared OneDrive files are good for working on one Maya project as a group. I don't tend to trust OneDrive though, as sometimes it doesn't sync properly or I can't log in on a campus PC (like right now :( )  Our group has been working on separate Maya project spaces, saved to our P drives. For connecting pieces or referencing parts between our work, I've created a shared OneDrive folder for us to place the Maya files that we intend to share with each other. This saves some confusion when dealing with each other's multiple incremental saves (figuring out which one to use when combining things) as well.

progress img I'm working at a pretty good pace. I should be able to finish this basic head within the week and hopefully I'll have time to reshape it by the end of the week as well. The base head is done. It's not perfect but it doesn't need to be since I'll just adjust it from here to fit the character design. I adjusted the nose to be pointed down and larger, and squared out his jawline. Oana has given me some pointers on adjusting the face using the soft selection and sculpting tools. This has been useful in making big changes to the form without disrupting the overall topology and while keeping things relatively smooth. She also noted that I should add an extra edge loop at the tip of the nose to keep its form sharp. Here's the head with the adjustments made largely using the soft selection tool. It's looking a lot more like the character now. I mostly configured the mouth and squared the jaw out, pulling the cheeks out as well. I also stretched the head...

Soft Selection and  Sculpting Tools     These tools are both good for selecting and moving an area of the of the model. This is good for making big, smooth adjustments - pushing and pulling     press b to toggle soft selection      b + middle-drag left or right to increase or decrease the size of the falloff area starting from 0.      b + drag left or right to resize the falloff area starting from the last radius value. I modelled the head this week and didn't really come across many issues. I got more practice on different tools, working from polygons, and pulling things with the soft selection tool.  With all the different parts of the head, I'm working with many more objects in one scene than I had before (head, eyeballs, teeth, eyebrows, moustache, and teeth). Because they've all been symmetrical parts, I've been really getting the hang of using the duplicate special tool to create matching sides that are linked ("Instance"...

The character head is very basic and cartoon-ish, and the character is constantly grinning. Because of this, the turnaround isn't very helpful as a head reference. I'm using the Joan of Arc tutorial and references to model the face, then I'll adjust this to fit the character shape better. This way I'll get good face topology and learn how to model a basic semi-realistic head. When I modelled the body, I had already formed a more anatomically-conscious model compared to the reference, so I think a more realistic head shape will fit okay. [no img. didn't make it to uni this weekend - tired :(. ]  The next few Maya sessions for me will just involve following that tutorial before I begin to play around with adjusting those face proportions. I suspect I'll need to make some more concrete decisions on how the eyes and mouth will look.   The group overall is moving at a good pace. I had initially planned for me to model the majority of the character, unsure of how quic...

The 8-side rule:      All tubes should have a number of sides that is a multiple of 8. This makes the topology easier to keep clean and makes things connect better.   The Circularise tool is very useful.      Oana showed me how to use this to round out the arm of my character model by selecting each edge loop one-by-one then using the circularise tool ('g' to quickly use the previous tool). I used this technique in rounding the fingers as well. I also learnt how to increase my selection by one loop all at once using shift + , or . And I accidentally changed my selection tool so it wasn't selecting or something. I did this by clicking while holding 'w' and this was how I was able to undo it as well. For the tank tread: use bezier curve to make the side view curve close with curves > open/close make an object of a singular groove connect to curve animation > constraint > motion path animation snapshot can adjust the graph - make it linear - for ...