Am I ready for skinning?

skusku

Hello polycount community,
this is my first (technically second) post on the forums, many are to come.

So I'm currently working on a computer game, a puzzle platformer/sidescroller.
I have been working on the main character for about a week now, had some attempts with skinning wich went horribly wrong, so I remodeled his Poncho.

https://sketchfab.com/models/849ff5b05d3c49ca84d54a0170f2382f

I first modeled it in T-Pose, just to find out during rigging and skinning that those are indeed just vertices and edges and not, as one would think, a real Poncho, which bends in on itself etc. etc.

So I went and modeled it in a more relaxed pose. Before I start committing hours of work into skinning the poncho (the legs are fine, they work as I'd expect them) I'd love to have some feedback:

Will I be able to have some good animations with the current topology? I need forward/backward and upward (bird flapping) movement with the arms/poncho/shoulders (for running, throwing and jumping) and I'd love if I could get some realism into the poncho, like it windily ( is that a word ?) flapping around in idle-states and stuff like that.

Also if somebody could give me a hint on (if the topology is ok) skinning those shoulders, I would be deeply grateful.

Sad enough, poor Chicchan here is starting to make me nervous because I would love to see some progress, but it's not even his fault is it?

Any further feedback is more than welcome,

Skusku

lotet

If you want that poncho to move up with the arms its gonna need a lot more polygons. I would do some research on how people have built stuff likes bat wings and see how the topology looks there. you need to think of it as a Hand fan.

skusku

Thanks lotet for the hint.
I'll check that out!

skusku

Heading in the right direction? https://sketchfab.com/models/dc718817393448a6aa4b686ee9ac5569

drysider

Topology is a little wonky - he's a mostly symmetrical character, so you should probably put a symmetry modifier over his face since there are a lot of verts in asymmetrical positions. That'll make skinning and rigging a real pain since you want to be able to mirror over a lot of your weighted verts.

Topology around the mouth is really thick and detailed - you don't need those many polys at all, especially since the rest of his face is quite lowpoly. You can easily get the same shape of the lips with half those polys, and better distributed too.

I would personally model him in a t pose to get the best range of movement for the poncho. If you rig him with his arms down like this, when they are raised it's going to be difficult for the poncho to deform properly and look right, there's going to be stretching issues etc etc, it'll probably be really hard to handle for somebody just practicing skinning. If you model the poncho in a tpose, you model in a position between raised and relaxed, which means it's going to be able to alternate between the too more easily with less deformation issues.

skusku

Hi drysider, thanks for the input.

Yeah I already cleaned up around the mouth (there were even more polys before :> ) but youre right, I could go even lower. Thanks for the tip on the wonky verts, I didnt pay much attention to that. Topoguns mirror option can be a pain.

I guess that, for some purposes the T-Pose may be better, however I don't feel that for my personal project this would be the right choice.
When it comes to Shoulder pitch, you only see it from the side, and only from some distance (it's for jump animations in a 2d sidescroller). So the T-Pose would be kind of the "extreme", where he'd jump down somewhere while raising the arms without raising the shoulderblades, and the relaxed pose would be more of a standard (while running, while standing, throwing etc.) so the relaxed pose and the shoulder yaw are high priority whereas shoulder pitch is lower priority.

I hope that makes sense and explains my choices.

https://sketchfab.com/models/030a62ed63574c0ba88d0dfe6c288233

Heres the newest version with a quick rig and automatic weights. Any further suggestions ?