Some use it because it's easier to model that way, especially with ortho viewports but many have abandoned it for better deformation. I don't know of a single game that uses a t-pose as the rigging pose, usually it's feet a shoulderwidth apart, arms at a 60 degree (sometimes 30 but that's rare) angle to the body. Personally I use legs pretty straight down, arms at a 30 degree angle but 60 degree seems to be the most commonly used. Generally a spread stance helps when you're going for normalmap generation and probably makes rigging easier as well.
A tri here or there isn't bad unless it's a high-deformation area. Generally anything you can get away with is fine.
i think im gona start to go for bent joints at the elbow and knees as well ... im pretty sure the nearer to the middle of a joints rotational travel you are in the pind pose, the better the deformation will be ... all though i havnt tested this yet ..
bend the joints slightly, bt generally relaxed straight. as for th shoulders, everyone here (Castaway) models their arms at 45degrees out from the body, palms down. and ever so slight bend at the knees so that Maya can find the "]refered angle and heels fairly clost together but feet straight forward. So that the joints on the legs are straight on a plain.
i find the most relaxed for my own arms is palms forward when my arms are up , and palms facing down with my arms by my side , this rotation is in the shoulder , and only starts as the arms are lifted above 45 degrees, i think ....
this is the thing ive come to realise , there is alot of small rotations in the shoulder . anyway , anyone know about blend shapes then , i cant belive no one in the polycount crowd knows how to answer the questions i asked ....
Ive updated the face wire just above , done some reference study , and i needed to make the chin slightly narrower and some other small adjustments (mostly in the areas JK spoke of) ... are the ears too far back and are they still too far out from the head??
I model pretty much the same as Scott says, with the arms about 45 with slight bends in the elbow/knees. Only thing that frustreates me is trying to model the hands on a 45 degree plane, sometimes I'll do them flat and then glue them on if it's really being a problem. Come to think of it, I seem to recall some program or another being able to set up a custom grid (and the ability to align camera(s) to it. Which was that?
As for rotations, logically, yes the closer to the 'center' of rotation you have your initial joints, the better they'll perform, but it's not that big of a deal, and it, in my oppinion, makes the job of modeling more of a pain such that I don't think it'd be worth it. Better to model in a straight-standing semi-normal pose so you have clarity in what you're getting. Sort of like modeling in Quads instead of Tris. Everything is going to be Tris anyway, and a model made in Tris may end up with a lower poly count, but quads are faster and make the model much clearer so you can see what's really there in a clearer manner.
That's what I think, anyway.
[edit] Though what you could do is model it in a traditional pose, give it a basic rig, move it into a more relaxed pose, fix the joints how you want them, then re-rig it from there. Sort of a primitive blendshape for games... This doesn't look like it's for a game though, and you're probably better off just using regular blendshapes. Not that I can tell you much about them, sorry.
"Though what you could do is model it in a traditional pose, give it a basic rig, move it into a more relaxed pose, fix the joints how you want them, then re-rig it from there."
This is what ive done in the past .... and it normally works quite well .... i think ive always modeled hands and feet seperately from the rest , i dont know why , maybe rfor the reasons you descibe ...
And lastly DARN! , i really hoped you may know somthing about blend shapes , as you are tackling a very similar problem at the moment...
I think the problem is that a lot of folks here are game animators and most game engines don't support blendshapes. That's more of a "Cinematics" thing. However the best book on blendshapes (yes it'sa book length subject), is Jason Osipa's "Stop Staring". It covers blendhapes driven by joint rotation as well as blendshapes done by slider, or controller, but there is a LOT of MEL scripting and node linkiong, It's not easy.
argh , i can node link , but scripting is right out for me ... the best i can handle is a simple expression. unless the only scripting is for making the front end for this , (the sliders) coz i can do that in the channel box ... ahh well , ill try and do without .. i think with sdk and bones that simulate muscular movement i can get farely good deformation. maybe ill get that book later when ive got some cash ...
ok , im trying to model a head using just quads , tryingto keep it light , but some areas im finding hard to get the topoligy right , around the ears mainly... at the moment its Pure quads , not a triangle in it ..
obviously there is details to add , but i want to get opinions on the basic topoligy before i start..
I absolutly don't get what you are trying to do with the front of the ear...that looks just wrong, and doesn't represent the 'flow' of the skin at that area at all.
Otherwise the edgeloop of the 'nostrils' looks not very natrual, the best solution to it is in my opinion to have a 'curl' at that place. Speaking about the nose: You have to alter the shape of it, right now it looks like the one of a baby and not like the one of a fully grown female (and so did your last version of the nose).
Last but not least, and that is really a bit tricky to do, I would suggest to make the edgeloop of the upper eyelit to NOT continue around the eye at the outer corner of the eye, but to go back to the ear (while the one of the lower eyelit has to be terminated somehow, or be moved inside the eye).
Oh and the eye area lack a edgeloop for the very prominet fold at the top of the eye.
there is no details in yet , like the upper eye , but i do think you are right to a certain degree about the nose .... ill look at more ref ... yes the ear loop thing is gonna be hard ...
Ok , im having troubles with this , its sorta the reason things have slowed down on this project ... hopefully my diagram is sorta readable and you can see that i have alot of joints in the arm , im using maya , how on earth do i run an IK chain through this and have it only afect the elbow joints but still pivot from the shoulder when i move the locator , do i make the IK chain from the middle of the upper arm to the middle of the lower arm and then move the IK end effector axis to the end of the arm? if so i would have to move the ik start up to the shoulder?? im pretty suck on this , anyone know?
Maybe this should be in 2d/3d discussion , but i figgured as my thread is here i would use it ....
Limit the rotations of the shoulder joint So that it can"swing" and "flap", but not Twist. On the Bicep joint, limit it so that it can only "twist". Limit the Elbow so that it can only "swing", Start the IK chain from the soulder, and end it on the wrist. The wrist and hand, you probably want to do as FK, and the "radius joint" (Between Elbow and wrist), but a controller on it, so that you can twist it as a separate channel from a controller, rather than have to select it on it's own.
ahh Scott , i knew you would help ... so when drawing these joints ,does it mater about prefered angles? ... anyway ill try what you have said ... ive tryed it before but probly not exactly how you say , maybe it will work ... but thanks for posting
i must be doing somthing wrong , when i setup the arm , i do it as scott says , but when there is and ik solver attached to the joints on the arm , its can only be twisted by the twist channel on the solver ... yes? , unless i use FK , in which i cant animate with IK easyly. Ive messed with using a defferent solver to the IK/RP solver , but both dont seem to rotate the arm in the right place , this could be down to prefered angles i suppose ... am i missing somthing major here? at the moment my only work around was to use the twist channel and rotate the root joint of the arm , (as usual) HELP!
You need to put a pole vector in the IF, that will take care of the teist of the arm. But also remember what i said about limiting rotation channels. Make the arm IK an IKrp solver, rather than the standar IKsc solver.
Thnx again scott...
Ive got a Pole vector controling the twist, but it twists it from the root joint, when ive got the joints limited , it just goes all screwy , as if its limited on the wrong axis.
this is an IKRP solver, as you can see , the hand should be able to follow the hand box, if the arm was rotating between the shoulder and the elbow ....
some work on the hair and face .... starting to think this may actually be near completion. still the same problems on the rigg ... but deformation is generally good , even with no skin weight painting.
Ok , the hair is basicly a collection of alpha plains..
the first image is using the background adn 2 spots to light the scene , the second is using HDRI , as you can see the second give a much more realistic look , but the light for the transparency maps are being drawn from the HDRI map instead of the background colour ... so its making the hair look funky ... a fix anyone?
Ok this is where im at , ive not really done any texture work, i have done alot on rigging , and some small proportion work and muscular details. still need to do more hair, as well as re-rig the arms and legs to make the elbows and knees move better , but generaly things are looking better.
If her abs weren't so defined, and her face wasn't fugly (one day she'll become a beautiful swan)...you could almost convince me that's a real person. Nice rigging.
poses look nice, the model itself looks very.... rough or chunky or something, like it needs to be smoothed out or you need to up the resolution on your sub-d if thats what you're using.
yes , sorry , i forgot to mention this is for smoothing ... daz slapped me around enough for me to smooth after rigging , but these are just shots to check deformation , so i didnt do it ...
Yes , the abs may be a little too defined. and yes im not sure about the face , she is sorta plain looking , but maybe after ive textured her abit more , she will look better ... keep these comments coming ...
If i put some loose clothes on her , what should it be , it would have to be somthing elegant that shows the figure ... or should i just leave her nude?
ahh well thats a long way off still ... maybe ill make her a WW2 uniform for Scott , as hes been a great help
hehe , its coming ... gota retexture n stuff ... still some rigging problems , but i had alook at the poly count , and its only 13k without the eye lashes.
yah man, i gotta give props. the model has a few issues here and there but you've done a really really really fucking good job on rendering out the skin. some parts are looking closer to photoreel than i can get skin shades, that's for sure. (but i'm a color blind ass) in fact, i wonder what your shader is like?
i think my main problem with the mesh could be just her body type. she's very anorexic, and i kinda see that as being lumpy or bumpy..
Yeah this is definitely looking good Therm. The posing has a really nice feel. She has character. And why the hell are you worrying about polycount?! And yeah, i'd put some clothes on her at some point!
wow , thanks for the replys !!
Its been a long time since i tryed to pinp any sorta real progress. but the last couple of days ive been able to do a bit of extra work on her, these more to come.
JW- Thnx for the kind words ... i would say some of it is down to my texture ... i have a lot of subtle info in there , im not happy with it but it helps... most of the skin realism comes from a: stahlbergs mimiking translusance skin shader , which is pretty nifty , but fairly easy to emulate (copy) and play about with. also , Daz has got to have the credit for showing me how to render properly. a lot of people told me when i pimped my portfolio that my rendering REALLY sucks so i had to do somthing about it.
If you want John ill send you a copy of that skin shader...
Daz- haha i guess i was just curious about how easy it would be to get somthing like this in a game... what clothes? maybe i should do a poll vote
thanks bro. no worries on sending me over the stuff tho, i've been working with stahlberg's method for a little while.. i've just got to bring my texturing up to par hehehe i should have known Daz had something to do with this! curses!
yeah , i got stahlbergs shader from reading a shed load of threads on topology at cgtalk...
daz was kind enough to show me how to render in mental ray... mayas software renderer sucks ass.
KDR - i tryed to get the colours to show areas that would be exposed to light as redish, and areas that are naturally white ive made a yellowy colour ... like around the pelvis and under the chin.
Amazing stuff thermidor. I think the skinnyness of this model is AWESOME. Honestly, it shows more skeletal structures, more anatomy and to be honest.. its way more interesting than a perfect 10 girl. People see that shit all the time.
The top view of her head... amazing hairline! and hair. I'd love to see how that was done. Wires.. flats.. etc.
The lighting pass that isnt displaying the alphas in the hair properly.. actually looks cooler than the correct one. Much more interesting sillouette. hehe. Mistakes dont have to be fixed.. maybe take advantage of them somehow.
haha , swampbug , you are about the only one who like her skinny ... personaly i think its more of a challenge to make a skinny girl , rather than a fat one , on a fat character you can get away with so much bad deformation ... and just put it down to fat folds ... on a skinny figure every little deformation problem is very apparent.... the funny thing is , most of those latest shots are done with little or no skin weight painting, at the moment im trying to finalise the rig , and then im gona do some small tweaks to the model before retexturing her .... then there will be some proper renders , and animations.
If anyone can do a shoulder setup like the one im moaning about on page 3 of this thread please please contact me
im almost out of hair
WOW! i had a break through ... ive solved the long standing ik controler problem ive been having ... and the idea came to me on the toilet!! ... to lots of you this is probly so newbie but hey...
well , i have tested it and it works ... its pretty simple and im imbarised i didnt think of it earlyer .... basicly i use a second control rig to control my first rig .. so i have connected the output of the bones on the second rig to the rotations on the joints i have on the first ... i supose its like having a rig to bind the joints to for deformation , and onother for controling those joints ... before now when somone said control rig to me , i thought of just nurbs surfaces that ik handles are parented to etc ... but this is great .. i can do so much with this.
Ill upload images when ive implimented it into the rig properly.
Ive hit another snag. where this secondary control rig does work .... its movement dosnt exactly mimik the movement of my bind rig ... its basicly to do with again me changing the rotations, so the (RotateX) bicep on my bind rig is rotated when my control rig rotates the shoulder (RotateX). argh , basicly im gona do away with IK , and start to use some sort of switcher ... not an ik/fk switch to blend animation tho ... just a switch for the usage.
i dont think an fk arm will be that bad, if i can use an SC solver i think i can use a FK rotate for the shoulder ... and still have IK move the joints ... i hope!!
Ive finnished the rig , just about , and textured the model ... not im looking at some ways of improving skin shading , to get better results....
ive got almost perfect rig deformation without blendshapes, i looked into using blendshapes , and it would require another few months of learning the technique so im working smoothly with it before i could finnish this project. so now im gona use the pose deformer plugin from comet cartoons, its not brilliant , but its pretty good.
I really think i could get perfect deformations from the rig alone if i could get child joints to drive parents using SDK, but i think this isnt possible , unless im being really crap (which i conseed is quite likely)
Maya Viewport pics, i think i prefer these
Still some small texture treaks i can do ... some streatching i should be able to fix.
Looking great Therm. Emphasize the tan lines a bit more ;-0
The hair works pretty damn well. The pores in her skin seem a little over done, and damn I wish you'd smooth this thing She feels like she's at an odd resolution. Somewhere between game and pre-rendered. I dunno, perhaps that's nonsense.
Congrats on finishing the rig. Blendshapes take minutes to learn, not months But If you don't need them, it's all good. I'm sure the poor girl will be glad of some clothes one day :-)
JkM - tell me more no really , the hand textures are just the same , haha
Daz - yeah , i sorta learnt how to do blend shapes, but the work flow seems awfully un interactive. there is a plug-in to allow for sculpting on the real surface, but after that ive gota learn how to rig it all together, it would also mean throwing away all the work on my rig really . as i dont need such a complex setup for blend shapes. but i think over all it would give the best results, just like we see in Stahlbergs work.
Im so happy with this new shoulder setup , normaly I sorta copy the ideas of others for rig setup , but this was really my own making (well i copied the human system) Its quite complex but really works i think. If ppl think it might help them , i was thinking of making a small rigging tut, to show my system. its far too complex to show in a picture so i should make a tut of it, at least to help the people out there like me , who look at alot of forums, and all everyone says are little snippets, never the whole story. anyway , i dont know if this would be helpfull, or wanted , let me know.
The smoothing, ive got alot to learn here. she looks so lumpy when smoothed, i know this is coz ive got too much detail in there, but removing it seems to kill the defenition of muscles... but yeah , i should at least smooth for the renders
Replies
She has to much round features in her face for that skinny body. Only a kid has that. Anyways, great work so far.
/Palm
The new head , some different solutions to problems but mainly looking the same , but in low poly and a bit tidyer.
And the front of the ear is too far away from the head.
But I really like the way you did the nose and the mouth
Maybe she will look older if you make the front/bottom/middel-part of the nose a bit longer? (sorry hard to explain
Some use it because it's easier to model that way, especially with ortho viewports but many have abandoned it for better deformation. I don't know of a single game that uses a t-pose as the rigging pose, usually it's feet a shoulderwidth apart, arms at a 60 degree (sometimes 30 but that's rare) angle to the body. Personally I use legs pretty straight down, arms at a 30 degree angle but 60 degree seems to be the most commonly used. Generally a spread stance helps when you're going for normalmap generation and probably makes rigging easier as well.
A tri here or there isn't bad unless it's a high-deformation area. Generally anything you can get away with is fine.
Scott
this is the thing ive come to realise , there is alot of small rotations in the shoulder . anyway , anyone know about blend shapes then , i cant belive no one in the polycount crowd knows how to answer the questions i asked ....
As for rotations, logically, yes the closer to the 'center' of rotation you have your initial joints, the better they'll perform, but it's not that big of a deal, and it, in my oppinion, makes the job of modeling more of a pain such that I don't think it'd be worth it. Better to model in a straight-standing semi-normal pose so you have clarity in what you're getting. Sort of like modeling in Quads instead of Tris. Everything is going to be Tris anyway, and a model made in Tris may end up with a lower poly count, but quads are faster and make the model much clearer so you can see what's really there in a clearer manner.
That's what I think, anyway.
[edit] Though what you could do is model it in a traditional pose, give it a basic rig, move it into a more relaxed pose, fix the joints how you want them, then re-rig it from there. Sort of a primitive blendshape for games... This doesn't look like it's for a game though, and you're probably better off just using regular blendshapes. Not that I can tell you much about them, sorry.
Oh yeah, nice model
This is what ive done in the past .... and it normally works quite well .... i think ive always modeled hands and feet seperately from the rest , i dont know why , maybe rfor the reasons you descibe ...
And lastly DARN! , i really hoped you may know somthing about blend shapes , as you are tackling a very similar problem at the moment...
Scott
obviously there is details to add , but i want to get opinions on the basic topoligy before i start..
Otherwise the edgeloop of the 'nostrils' looks not very natrual, the best solution to it is in my opinion to have a 'curl' at that place. Speaking about the nose: You have to alter the shape of it, right now it looks like the one of a baby and not like the one of a fully grown female (and so did your last version of the nose).
Last but not least, and that is really a bit tricky to do, I would suggest to make the edgeloop of the upper eyelit to NOT continue around the eye at the outer corner of the eye, but to go back to the ear (while the one of the lower eyelit has to be terminated somehow, or be moved inside the eye).
Oh and the eye area lack a edgeloop for the very prominet fold at the top of the eye.
Ok , im having troubles with this , its sorta the reason things have slowed down on this project ... hopefully my diagram is sorta readable and you can see that i have alot of joints in the arm , im using maya , how on earth do i run an IK chain through this and have it only afect the elbow joints but still pivot from the shoulder when i move the locator , do i make the IK chain from the middle of the upper arm to the middle of the lower arm and then move the IK end effector axis to the end of the arm? if so i would have to move the ik start up to the shoulder?? im pretty suck on this , anyone know?
Maybe this should be in 2d/3d discussion , but i figgured as my thread is here i would use it ....
Scott
This sortof explains what im trying ... (ish)
Scott
Ive got a Pole vector controling the twist, but it twists it from the root joint, when ive got the joints limited , it just goes all screwy , as if its limited on the wrong axis.
Blast.avi
this is an IKRP solver, as you can see , the hand should be able to follow the hand box, if the arm was rotating between the shoulder and the elbow ....
some work on the hair and face .... starting to think this may actually be near completion. still the same problems on the rigg ... but deformation is generally good , even with no skin weight painting.
more to come very soon
the first image is using the background adn 2 spots to light the scene , the second is using HDRI , as you can see the second give a much more realistic look , but the light for the transparency maps are being drawn from the HDRI map instead of the background colour ... so its making the hair look funky ... a fix anyone?
537k image
As usual , any comments are welcome.
Yes , the abs may be a little too defined. and yes im not sure about the face , she is sorta plain looking , but maybe after ive textured her abit more , she will look better ... keep these comments coming ...
If i put some loose clothes on her , what should it be , it would have to be somthing elegant that shows the figure ... or should i just leave her nude?
ahh well thats a long way off still ... maybe ill make her a WW2 uniform for Scott , as hes been a great help
I dig.
b1ll
benregimbal@hotmail.com
i think my main problem with the mesh could be just her body type. she's very anorexic, and i kinda see that as being lumpy or bumpy..
Its been a long time since i tryed to pinp any sorta real progress. but the last couple of days ive been able to do a bit of extra work on her, these more to come.
JW- Thnx for the kind words ... i would say some of it is down to my texture ... i have a lot of subtle info in there , im not happy with it but it helps... most of the skin realism comes from a: stahlbergs mimiking translusance skin shader , which is pretty nifty , but fairly easy to emulate (copy) and play about with. also , Daz has got to have the credit for showing me how to render properly. a lot of people told me when i pimped my portfolio that my rendering REALLY sucks
If you want John ill send you a copy of that skin shader...
Daz- haha i guess i was just curious about how easy it would be to get somthing like this in a game... what clothes? maybe i should do a poll vote
daz was kind enough to show me how to render in mental ray... mayas software renderer sucks ass.
KDR - i tryed to get the colours to show areas that would be exposed to light as redish, and areas that are naturally white ive made a yellowy colour ... like around the pelvis and under the chin.
The top view of her head... amazing hairline! and hair. I'd love to see how that was done. Wires.. flats.. etc.
The lighting pass that isnt displaying the alphas in the hair properly.. actually looks cooler than the correct one. Much more interesting sillouette. hehe. Mistakes dont have to be fixed.. maybe take advantage of them somehow.
smashing stuff!
later
If anyone can do a shoulder setup like the one im moaning about on page 3 of this thread please please contact me
im almost out of hair
thermidor_2002 AT hotmail.com to chat on MSN...
other contact info is on my website ...
well , i have tested it and it works ... its pretty simple and im imbarised i didnt think of it earlyer .... basicly i use a second control rig to control my first rig .. so i have connected the output of the bones on the second rig to the rotations on the joints i have on the first ... i supose its like having a rig to bind the joints to for deformation , and onother for controling those joints ... before now when somone said control rig to me , i thought of just nurbs surfaces that ik handles are parented to etc ... but this is great .. i can do so much with this.
Ill upload images when ive implimented it into the rig properly.
Scott
i dont think an fk arm will be that bad, if i can use an SC solver i think i can use a FK rotate for the shoulder ... and still have IK move the joints ... i hope!!
argh!!!
ive got almost perfect rig deformation without blendshapes, i looked into using blendshapes , and it would require another few months of learning the technique so im working smoothly with it before i could finnish this project. so now im gona use the pose deformer plugin from comet cartoons, its not brilliant , but its pretty good.
I really think i could get perfect deformations from the rig alone if i could get child joints to drive parents using SDK, but i think this isnt possible , unless im being really crap (which i conseed is quite likely)
Maya Viewport pics, i think i prefer these
Still some small texture treaks i can do ... some streatching i should be able to fix.
The hair works pretty damn well. The pores in her skin seem a little over done, and damn I wish you'd smooth this thing
Congrats on finishing the rig. Blendshapes take minutes to learn, not months
Daz - yeah , i sorta learnt how to do blend shapes, but the work flow seems awfully un interactive. there is a plug-in to allow for sculpting on the real surface, but after that ive gota learn how to rig it all together, it would also mean throwing away all the work on my rig really . as i dont need such a complex setup for blend shapes. but i think over all it would give the best results, just like we see in Stahlbergs work.
Im so happy with this new shoulder setup , normaly I sorta copy the ideas of others for rig setup , but this was really my own making (well i copied the human system) Its quite complex but really works i think. If ppl think it might help them , i was thinking of making a small rigging tut, to show my system. its far too complex to show in a picture so i should make a tut of it, at least to help the people out there like me , who look at alot of forums, and all everyone says are little snippets, never the whole story. anyway , i dont know if this would be helpfull, or wanted , let me know.
The smoothing, ive got alot to learn here. she looks so lumpy when smoothed, i know this is coz ive got too much detail in there, but removing it seems to kill the defenition of muscles... but yeah , i should at least smooth for the renders
Clothes .... argh , what to make her wear?