Originally rigged in 2 hours, yesterday I decided to try it again and screencast it for you all.
2nd time about 45mins (-time for script UI and boneshapes)!
I suppose it doesn’t hurt to know what you’re doing the 2nd time round :P
Model: Kjartan Tysdal
Rig: Jeremy Davidson
Animation is starting to slow down a little for me in the last days (if animation is cranked this close to the end then you’ve got problems).
So other than a tweak or two here and there, there isn’t much for an animator to do. So yesterday Kjartan made me this little guy.
With a quick rig and flap cycle, I’m spending the last hours pigeon’ing any scene I can. Sticking him perched in a tower somewhere in the background, or flying past in the distance just to add a little touch of movement and, eh-hem… life.
Because this is a vfx film, the animation workload is a little less stressful than it would be if everything was animated. Which lets me get in with a fine tooth comb and really polish the c**p outa these shots.
Other things it lets me do it to add in little bits that’d make it look a lot more awesome (because we love that word here at Mango!)
So here’s a very brief tutorial on how to break things.
Been a while since I’ve posted stuff for you all. So here’s the robot arm as it is at the moment. Made a few changes since last time, notably the arm attachment and the new chain saw. Also filled in a few gaps where there was empty space. There’s even the first bit of weight painting I’ve done on this project :P
As promised, here is a shortish video showing off a bit of the detail in the rig as it stands thus far. As you’ll see, there are still holes in the model and intersections that need to be fixed, this is just how it is at the moment.
The detail in the Quadbot is starting to get a little crazy. With each step up in the model’s detail, the rigging has to be matched. With the rig getting up towards almost 800 bones, its starting to show, and the model isn’t even finished yet. I also set myself a challenge of trying to keep away from major mesh deformation (apart from the pipes).
There isn’t a single Armature modifier on this yet.
So the rigging of the Robot is going well.
595 bones and counting! Any bets on how many it’ll have by the end of it all?
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edit 7pm same day: now at 637
Due to popular demand, and us being the sharing type, here is the blockheads file for your amusement!
There is a readme text inside the file that explains the particulars of them all.
Now go out and make us some funny blockheads skits!!!
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Edit: People were having crashes with the file, possibly due to different versions of blender. This file *should* be ok!
We’re starting to gear up for the animatic. With Ian getting the timing together with a storyboard edit, I’ve been rigigng up some low-poly, least-distracting, fast, quick and easy to use proxy characters I’ve affectionately named BlockHeads.
The idea is to use these with low res environments to really plan out how each scene and shot will be done. Obviously we’ll probably tweak it all alot once we start the actual filming. But for now this will give us a really solid idea on how each shot should be planned, how when and where we need to add detail and also what the film itself is going to be like.
I’m baaaaaack! Arriving a little later than everyone else but now the team is complete!
Making up for missing out on the “Quit Blender” fun, I’ve been spending my first few days playing around with some of the half finished models that have been laying around. This robotic arm (modeled by Kjartan from David’s awesome concept with little tweaks by me) is the first to be rigged up as a test.
