Narrative - Tying all the Loose Ends

As the Narrative project draws to a close, there are just a few more things left to blog about.

Starting with the Maya tasks, I have finished modelling the car. In the last few days I've had to catch up from week eight on the car video tutorials, although thankfully they didn't take so long to do compared to the first few, which were all about blocking the overall shape. The details weren't so difficult to finish off. I'm glad its done now, as modelling cars isn't really one of my interests in 3D, nevertheless, it has taught me many new modelling techniques as has the character modelling tutorials.








Now the last time I blogged about the character tutorials was when I was at the modelling stage. Well, he is now fulling rigged and skinned, and is just waiting to be animated. Rigging, I still found rather confusing, although much less than the first time, last year. I think it was the spine rig which not only seemed random, in its rigging process, but also weird to animate with. It was then that I decided that the characters for our group project would be better off with a simple FK rig. After all, I was the one that had to animate for that project.

Skinning on the other hand, I have sussed completely. If it wasn't for the slightly unintuitive interface in Maya 2010, it would almost have been enjoyable. Except the hands, as they take so long to do. (I say specifically 2010 or below, as you have to click the hold weight for each individual joint, instead of shift selecting them all.)
Anyway, I've posted a video demonstration of the character rig. Both demonstrating the individual controls, and showing how the skinning looks. It's about 2 and a half min's. I double sped it so that it wouldn't take so long to play.



Here is the turnaround for the character. I used the same setup that I used for the characters in the group project. This was my own setup, based on the tutorials, but with a few of my own personal touches.



Lastly there is the lip syncing tutorials. I had actually almost finished it to my surprise, so there wasn't much left to do, although I am just presenting it as the lip sync only, I have started to take it further, but animating its body, and my scientist character is playing the part of the other voice too, but it is regrettably not yet finished. I would much rather spend some time on it and get it right, than rush to see what can be done in a day, but like I said, he is lip synced, and here is exactly that.



Although I have posted two more film reviews, I have missed Arachnophobia. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the original viewing due to the snow, and have not been able to get a copy to watch since. As I'm sure you are aware, It's also been rather hectic with finishing the trailer.
I hope I haven't missed any others, but they should all be listed in the film reviews section.

And to end I will show the trailer that was submitted, (admittedly late) at the crit. It isn't the final article though, so this is why B3D Studios will continue to finish it how we intended it to be.