-= ReyBomb.com =-

Charlie Bear Brown 03

That was a long fun weekend. Now back to the modeling...

Unlike my first game character, Charlie will be a single mesh object. I finished his body last night. Well, for the most part. I left a couple of holes on his torso where I plan to put the arms.

Even though I'm trying to keep this model low-poly, I do want his arms and legs to bend nicely. I may have to come back and add geometry after I put a rig on him.

As I was modeling I kept noticing that I drew Charlie a bit wide. I attempted to draw him to his proportions, but for animation it may not work. You'll notice below that he is going to be a bit thinner than the drawing.

Labels: 3d, CharlieBear

Charlie Bear Brown 02

The head is going well, even though I've started over a handful of times. I tried the spline modeling technique that I used on Van Der Dick and It just didn't seem to be working out for me.

I am at a good point after a couple of days worth of modeling though. The proportions of the snout and ears needed major work. It is quite nice having a real object to draw inspiration from. Especially since my artwork is not museum worthy, yet!

Here are a couple of views of the head, plus a screen capture from the reference drawing.

Labels: 3d, CharlieBear

Charlie Bear Brown 01

I have a teddy bear that was given to me when I was 8 years old. His name is Charlie Bear Brown. I'm not sure how I came up with that, but I'm sure that my mother helped me. I do like Snoopy quite a bit and it's possible that there was an influence from the Peanuts.

Moving on...

Every once in a while I would sketch this bear and it only seemed fitting to model him in 3d. It is the least I can do for a stuffed animal that has given me so many fond childhood memories. It's not always easy being a latchkey child you know.

Here we go...

Labels: 3d, CharlieBear

Van Der Dick 14 - DONE!

-= Animate

Finally. I have been playing around with some simple animation files and trying to figure out where my mesh is deforming. For the most part I have been able to clean it up and create a pass-able animation rig.

This is nowhere near professional, but it is a good start and I am sure the next one I do will be better. I can't believe that almost a month of work went into getting this guy up and running. I rendered a small animation clip of Van Der Dick doing a jump kick. The animation file was part of the course materials, therefore I can't fully claim animation credit. However, the composition was all me. The panning camera, the stage, the lights, all me... HA! Check it out in my "Reel" section.

Below you can see a couple of areas that were giving me trouble. Adding animations and scrubbing the time-line is a great way to see how your character/mesh is behaving.

Labels: 3d, VanDerDick

Van Der Dick 13

-= Rigging

I'm on a roll now. This phase of the project involves adding a biped skeleton system to the mesh. I've done this before, so I was able to shape the bones to fit inside the mesh rather quickly. What I hadn't done before was to spend time linking all the bones to the corresponding vertices.

In order to have this model work in the supported game engine I am asked to use the Physique modifier. This is actually a decent method for rigging the mesh quickly. From other sources, I have read that the Skin modifier is more commonly used for animations. Meanwhile, the Physique modifier is more often used in video game rigs. I'm sure it is a matter of necessity. I hope to learn more about this in the near future.

Below you can see a selected leg bone and the influence area on the mesh. This must be done for each bone. I'm glad I have a couple years worth of music in my library, since this chore takes time. I'll finish this up later, right now my eyes are about to close for the last time tonight.

Labels: 3d, VanDerDick

Van Der Dick 12

-= Meshes Unite

Skinning is complete! This is as much as I am willing to do for now. I have been reading a book on animation in Max and I'm itching to put a rig on this guy and make him move.

I had added a Turbo Smooth modifier just for kicks and to see how much of an effect it would have on my mesh. You can see the tallies in the polygon/face counts below. Over 3k polys on the body with a higher resolution. I'm guessing this is where procedural mapping comes in handy.

This image is a composite of the high resolution body mesh. I doubt it would be game engine friendly. Not as it is anyway, too much to calculate. The feet do look better though!

Labels: 3d, VanDerDick

Van Der Dick 11

-= Head On

As instructed, I am only working on half of the head. This speeds the work flow quite a bit, but the downside is that Van Der Dick will have a mirrored personality. HA!

Stoopid I know...

The UV map was much easier to work than the whole body. The face was unwrapped in three pieces; top, face, and bottom. You can see the UV layout below. I stretched the face to make it longer, this way the checkers would all be more evenly distributed. Not bad.

In Photoshop I painted the whole head and face. However, I did use some reference artwork for the facial features. This was included with the project files. I modified it enough to make it different, and of course I had to paint in the nose, ears, and fill in gaps. I also painted along the seams with a similar tone so that when the maps are put together it will look seamless. You can notice this along the jaw on the bottom and the side of the head on the top.

Pretty good looking guy huh? LOL, yeah right...

Labels: 3d, VanDerDick

Fridays are on the calendar.

It is a bit sad to think that my game night of Friday night has been pre-planned for the next few months. That is how it feels to me, sad. Anyway, It's for a good cause and I do get some gaming in during the daytime hours. So don't feel too sad for me.

This Friday there is a cool birthday celebration, another 30 bites it. Next Friday there is a Graduate Fair going on in D.C. Check it out if you're interested, I'll be there. SCAD, an art school from Savannah, is the reason for my interest. Should be nice to explore my schooling options.

SCAD at Washington, District of Columbia
FAIR DETAILS:
Fri Sep 19 2008
5:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M.
Grand Ballroom
Georgetown University Conference Center / Marriot Hotel
http://www.idealist.org/

Labels: spillage

Van Der Dick 10

-= Wacom Time

The instructions for creating textures are rather liberal. You have the option of using the pre-made materials, but what fun is that? There is a tutorial included on how to stitch photo reference material into clothing that can be applied to your UV map.

Speaking of the UV map, after rendering it from 3dsMax I took it into Photoshop and began to paint the areas that would have clothing and skin. I also took some photos of a pair of pants and found images of a military boot online. However, stitching the boot took quite a while. In some areas I had to paint in what the boot may look like from the back or the side.

The same thing happened with the pants. Although I was able to lay out the pants flat for photo taking, it still took a lot of cut, paste, paint, and imagination to fill in the gaps. I almost felt like a garment maker; maybe I should consider doing clothes design, nah...

In any case, this was a fun period after all that tedium with arranging the UV maps. The great thing is that I can create an endless amount of clothes for this character and have multiple character variations using the same mesh. Email me if you want to paint a UV map.

I didn't spend too much time on the shirt or hands, mostly because I want to move on to the head. That should be a challenge.

Labels: 3d, VanDerDick

Van Der Dick 09

-= UVs

Editing the UVs and trying to figure out how to lay out them out has to be a special skill earned with experience. I'm only aiming to paint in Photoshop; I can't wait to work with procedural maps, UVWs.

Here I am showing the editing panel for texture coordinates. You can also see on the model that I have mirrored the coordinates from one side to the other. The torso is broken up into the front and back. The arms, legs, boots, and hands have also been separated and flattened.

The checker map is still not 100% perfect, but I do need to move on and take the UVs into Photoshop. I guess after all this unwrapping is done we get to have some fun painting. Time to use the tablet, wooo hoooo!

Labels: 3d, VanDerDick

ProjectBlog

September 30, 2008

Charlie Bear Brown 03

September 26, 2008

Charlie Bear Brown 02

September 24, 2008

Charlie Bear Brown 01

September 20, 2008

Van Der Dick 14 - DONE!

September 18, 2008

Van Der Dick 13

September 15, 2008

Van Der Dick 12

September 12, 2008

Van Der Dick 11

September 10, 2008

Fridays are on the calendar.

September 8, 2008

Van Der Dick 10

September 3, 2008

Van Der Dick 09