First feature test, roughed-out head working towards the tough Spitfire pilot. Soon will be able to have him tracking the sky. Quite complex though. Which is nice.
Mrs Ming suggested a good one. The guy looking ahead the thousand yards and then the sound track has high heels walking past. Can do something with that soon
Grains of rice correct that man
Ming
https://s117.photobucket.com/user/Mington/library?action=view¤t=EyeballsControllerTest.flv
By comparison hereās the default XSI āManā object fully rigged. Iām just animating the LookAt controller. Heās a bit elfin, a bit rabid. Our guys will be chunky but lovable
https://s117.photobucket.com/user/Mington/library?action=view¤t=XSIdefaultguy.flv
Bearing in mind that there is the HL2 content creator addon for XSIā¦ ValveSource on the menu bar, practically drag and drop objects from XSI into a HL2 modded game, which is part of The Plan
The Cinematic Mod for Half-Life 2 is getting improved further: The upcoming version 9 includes better performance on 32 bit systems and special shaders for a more detailed outcome of character skins.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,658914/Imagegallery/Fakefactory_Cinematic_Mod_9_first_screenshots_of_the_new_version_with_extraordinary_skin_textures/
Look at the āoriginalā version of this shot there, crikey
Ming
Itās a feature test Wildcat. Can it be done given what we know? Everything else is of no consequence
Heās lucky heās got the one eye Admiral
Ming
Your eyelid closing āwinkā sequence is probably not the way to go Ming. Now character animation is really not my āthingā but i believe what is usualy used for facial animations are PLA morphs.
PLA morphs are āpoint level animationā. The eyelid is modeled in open, closed and expresive positions using the same vertex construction and set as morph targets. The facial expresions are then bound to a controller object which is then animated.
This alows for differing eye/facial morphs to be blended. The art being in creating the individual morphs then controling them via a controller object.
It makes life a lot simpler in the long run, especialy if the face is going to used extensivly and speach sync is to be attempted.
HTH m8
Sporran
XSI has it covered no worries Sporran thanks mate, youāre describing what Iām doing right now but Softimage obviously have different handles for stuff. I told you about Shape Manager (morphing, that first-smile clip) earlier. Morphing is quick to set up but Iām working on vertex animation via bones to learn the bonesā ropes Iām always killing two birds with one stone. Iām working too intensively on four things at once (as Iāve learned you 3D guys absolutely need to, to get up to speed) at the moment to spare time to show more finished things. Focusing on that late afternoon scene looking south. Head modelling in parallel with animation, working them up together
Yes exactly what you say mate, thatās where Iām up to on this stuff. Building the controllers. Can be 3D objects in the workspace, very exciting to have high-level controls. But I must focus so that one is me just controlling the eyeballās constraint manually. Heāll be following things later. And focusing on an enemy plane, then youāre swept into the back of his retina with the electrical activity and a red recognition light coming on. Thatās a bandit Boothroyd
That was a test that eyes can be controlled- that Iāve learned how it can be done. Loads of linking parameters to control objects and so on but itāll be a while before he starts looking interesting. Iāve got seven days as usual
You should see this XSI kit mate Iām working up to something quite special in the event I donāt fall under an ambulance
Thereās also in this version that thing where you render different passes and then er, recombine them offline to create the final render, in post-processing. Itāll come to me
Found out why some clips are large. Itās the ones with the āShaded With Mesh Visibleā for some reason, compression thing. Theyāll need to be stills. Sort of defeats the object though
Ming
that thing where you render different passes and then er, recombine them offline to create the final render, in post-processing. Itāll come to me
Compositing
This ICE stuff is looking good and naturalisticā¦
Ok back to the head modelling, couldnāt fix the head without knowing how the vertex animation would pan out. Chickens, eggs but appears to be feasible. Fusible maybe
These full-on bald heads are a bit weird, heāll have a wig next time or my nameās not Terry Wogan
Ming
Not morphed this eyeball test Sporran and Iāll be using a lattice transform to give the airman normal-shaped oval eyeballs. Iām trying out the various functions for simulating/controlling eyeball functions. Should have him looking around suspiciously shortly
The eyeball (in the clip, the image below has just placeholder ping-pong balls) is a surface rather than a polygon object, with the pupil-object constrained to the surface. Learning all that complex āLink Withā stuff, phew itās mind-boggling but getting there
Now using a (deceptively) simple model for tidying up ready for clean control of eyeball functions via an animation control panel with sliders. Concentrating on the eyeball control functions as thatās where the most expressive bits will need to be animated
Ming
https://s117.photobucket.com/user/Mington/library?action=view¤t=EyeballFunctions_1.flv
Bit more work on him, looking like a death mask which is encouraging
PLA morphs are āpoint level animationā. The eyelid is modeled in open, closed and expresive positions using the same vertex construction and set as morph targets. The facial expresions are then bound to a controller object which is then animated.
This alows for differing eye/facial morphs to be blended. The art being in creating the individual morphs then controling them via a controller object.
It makes life a lot simpler in the long run, especialy if the face is going to used extensivly and speach sync is to be attempted.
Thatās exactly what Iām doing Sporran - now itās a couple of days later when I actually know what Iāve been doing as Iāve been following(stumbling through) tutorials - and you nailed it again yes, itās for re-useable content that Iām concentrating on working the whole lot up together rather than getting bogged down in the modelling. Makes things more interesting too, switching to a bit of modeling then into studying control objects and so on
Send me on your German armour and Iāll get them pounding around the place in a HL2 mod. Not this year though
Ming