Let the rigs begin

My first attempt at rigging a human head.

It involved using bones and some controls for eyebrows and jaw. and creating blend shapes to achieve a few emotions. The model I rigged is "Samuel" by Leah Apanowicz, found on Creative Crash at http://www.creativecrash.com/3d-model/samuel-free-3d-model

What I've learned:
Lots about skinning and weights due to the huge poly count on the model.
How to build a basic facial rig and model the blend shapes using the sculpt tools to enhance it.
How to link blend shapes to a GUI for ease of access.
How to link blend shapes to the jaw controller to create accurate skin stretching.

Next step is to find a lower res model and try again, this time rigging the entire body and a full range of emotions along with all the controllers I can think of.

Modo Ninja

We've been trying out some new software packages in work. I was asked to test out the animation abilities in Modo. Some great features in it, really nice coming from a classical animation background, the spacing chart allows you create key poses, in-betweens and breakdowns with ease before you have to look at the timing, similar to animating in stepped but a lot more intuitive.  The onion skinning, and motion path and arc tracking are great for sorting out your trajectories. Part of the aim of this task was to see how fast I could animate a basic scene in Modo so I limited the amount of time I had to complete it, took me roughly 8 hours, and I had spent a couple of hours getting used to the basics of Modo before i jumped into it.

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Parkour

Decided to build on the wall climbing exercise I did last year, using a proper character rig, Malcolm, and creating a longer sequence with some extra moves. Collected reference from different parkour videos online and used these to build a course for Malcolm to take. I tried to really push the speed of the movement to get an extra bit of cartooning into it. Once i had the scene planned out it took roughly 2 weeks of animating

Parkour from Eoin Coakley on Vimeo.

Decks Setup

I made my mixer to go with my set of decks and created a night-club-esque lighting setup. So so many layers of texture on the mixer with all the labels. Looking forward to getting back to some animating now, as I revisit my free running exercise from a few months back

Decks

Some more practicing with modelling and lighting here. This one took a bit more time than any of the individual pieces in the previous post, getting the lighting, texturing and reflections to match my reference photos was quite tricky.

Modelling

I've been practising some modelling and texturing in Softimage for the past few weeks. Started off with a model plane/spaceship hybrid, following a tutorial and then modifying it to add some extra detail and the textures.

I wanted to create a work area for the model, basing it off the desk in my room. I added in some other models, such as the toy robot, the lamp and the paint materials and then experimented with the light coming in through the gaps in the blinds.

To push this model further I decided to model my own bedroom, with the desk as above. I made some small modifications, such as changing the look of the box where the TV sits, to add some extra colour to the room.

I modelled up a pair of hands, rigged them using GEAR and then animated them clapping.

Favourite Adequachulance

I was given the task of doing a lipsync from the 11second club archives, I ended up doing 2 of them over the course of 6 to 8 weeks. Started off juggling between the 2 of them, but eventually decided I was better off focusing on one at a time, and getting it as finished as I could before moving on to the next one. Really tried to push the posing on these 2, and both required a complete restart after a couple of weeks on each. Well worth the extra bit of time put into them, and a huge amount learned about proper shot workflow, with thanks to the guys in work for all the helpful tips and feedback.

Adequately Final Splined from Eoin Coakley on Vimeo.

Favourite Final Splined from Eoin Coakley on Vimeo.