Let the Animation Begin

The Pandora model is now finished and in use! 

Here's a picture of the final model:

I finished the facial rig, which was quite a fun process. As I've mentioned previously I've never made a proper one before so I had to do a bit of research. I've used Morpher before to create expressions but this time I wanted to control the expression changes without having to go into the modifier panel each time. Also this is the first animatable model I've created with a jaw bone so I wanted to link that up to my control panel too. I had no idea how to do this mind so research had to be done!

I found these tutorials:

http://www.bakaneko.com/howto/computer/3d/rigging/
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/video_facecontrol/facecontrol.php

I did also have a read at the book 'Stop Staring' I have on facial animation, but the actual section on setting up the controls for it is for MAYA so didn't make much sense to me. After reading/watching the above links I felt comfortable enough to take what I'd learned and apply it to what I wanted to achieve with my own rig. I created my control panel first, making control panels for all the actions I wanted to be able to control and then set these up with IK and limits so they could be wired up to the relevant expressions later using reaction manager.

In total I ended up having 40 morph targets, quite a variety.

These should be enough there for what I want but if not I can always create more as I go along. I wired all of these up to my control panel then using Reaction Manager, as well as the jaw bone and that all seems to be working just fine. The real test will come when I start animating her facial expressions in the animation, so fingers crossed!

With that done I then decided to test the rig itself by creating a quick walk cycle for Pandora to fix any obvious problems. I didn't want to spend too long on the walk (as tempting as it was) with it only being a test but I tried to give it a bit of character then I rendered it out. Couldn't see any problems with the skinning so I decided it was time to begin the actual animation work. I did see a few things on the model and texture I'd like to have refined but at this stage I don't want to be editing and re-doing stages. I'd rather move forward unless the issues really call for me to go back.

Yesterday I filmed some footage and began the opening animation where Pandora steals the key from the drawer. I figured this would be the best sequence to begin with to give the rig its first proper testing... and encountered problems with the skinning. This was to be expected after have smooth most things have gone so far :P The problem occured with the shoulder and elbow joints with some strange distortion. I played around with envelopes and vertex weights to some extent but this didn't to much. Then I had an idea that maybe its the shape of the rig at these joints so I edited the CAT rig at the elbows and shoulders so when the joints bend theres a curved section. This seems to have worked pretty good :) Here's a screen shot to show what I mean:

I did also test on a copy of the file if adding more edges would have fixed the problem but it didn't which is kind of good really becasue that would have meant re unwrapping the body, whereas altering the rig itself doesn't really affect anything not even the animation on the various parts as long as you're not in animation mode. Another bonus of the CAT system!

All the problems I've encountered and fixed with the rig I've applied to a 'Final' version of my rig so if I need to bring it into a new scene its up to date with all issues corrected. When I begin work on the main sequence I'll need this.

I also opened up the Attic scene file yesterday and added in my main camera to make sure the angle I'd envisioned in my animatic worked with the 3D version. It did. I also added some lights and checked the scale of the models with the scene just to make sure. All good!

Today I plan on filming some footage for this section, ready to begin blocking it out on the weekend. I've also got some DVDs to watch for relevant research for my report. So far I'm on track with my schedule :)