rigging for portfolio posing
polycounter lvl 14
hey folks,
Picking the brains of the character artists here, how are you posing your mesh for the beauty shots?
I have a very basic knowledge of rigging with bones in maya, is that the best soloution or am i missing something? I had a search about for this but haven't come up with anything.
anyway heres the character that I want to pose just cos a thread without pictures is a sad thread.
Textures are rather wip.
thanks in advance.
Picking the brains of the character artists here, how are you posing your mesh for the beauty shots?
I have a very basic knowledge of rigging with bones in maya, is that the best soloution or am i missing something? I had a search about for this but haven't come up with anything.
anyway heres the character that I want to pose just cos a thread without pictures is a sad thread.
Textures are rather wip.
thanks in advance.
Replies
If it really is purely for posing, then throwing in some bones to make a human skeleton will be enough. No need for IK and all that stuff.
Hell, you could just duplicate her and manually go in and pose it at a mesh level, although I think it's good practice to get into the habit of rigging the character.
Outside of that you could download the trial of max and use it, or just export a biped to FBX and import that into Maya to get a good start.
When I was using maya about a year ago to do some rigging and animation work I used "The Setup Machine" to create simple rigs quickly. It really is the most painless way to rig in Maya and I wouldn't really want to work in maya without it.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/marketplace/scripts-plugins/character/c/-rapid-rig-advanced-auto-rig-for-maya--2
As for skinning, if you're using Maya 2011 then give the interactive skin volumes a try. They won't give you perfect results, but I've found it gives me a better starting point then default smooth bind. Then I usually just lock the joints except for two and paint between them (eliminates joint weights popping all over the place). But everyone has their own methods...
Once again thanks very much
I think its GREAT to explore rigging and to get a simple quick ways of testing out joint placement and trying out edge flow and joints, but you can do that with very simple FK only rigs. I think every modeler should have at least a basic understanding like Super Happy Cow suggested.
Initial impressions are that its very easy to use and I actually understand most of whats going on.
I certianly agree that I could do with knowing more about the rigging process and its fundementals, I think that I will have to add it to the list of stuff that I need to really get my head around....I only recently began to get good deformation in my edge flow thanks to ancient pigs tutorials so I have a lot to learn still.
Im working on my third rig atm, but these are the results from the first one, I messed up the joint placement in the fingers, and completly detached the head from the shoulder rig...oops. she's looking a bit floaty too, i havent really got the weight right in the stance. Also note the dead stare.....havent worked on the face yet.
Anyway pictures, and thanks once again for all the help guys
I really like the materials they're great, I like the pose too, nice work! There are a few things I would change about it though.
- Rotate the right foot away from the left, people especially women, tend to stand with their feet in a V pattern or with one slightly turned but probably not as extreme as those examples. It helps with balance, it looks like she's getting ready to use the baton so she would position herself strongly and balanced without thinking about it.
- The pupils look too small and with that much white around them she has crazy eyes. It might help to also tint the whites of her eyes a flesh color in addition to making them bigger.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01373/eyes_1373075c.jpg
The rule of thumb I use for eyes is, the color part rests just below the lower lid, and the upper lid rests just above the black part. As you rotate eyes around and have people look around you often want the pupils to be bigger because they go from zero to crazy eyes fast with tiny pupils.
- Maybe turn the head toward her right or left shoulder and re angle her attention/body a tiny bit in relation to the camera. The more aristocratic she is the closer her chin gets to her shoulder the higher in the air her nose gets. I wouldn't take that too far, she seems like a working girl but a little bit of it would add in some snooty, gestapo bitch.
Photographers and painters rarely show their subjects straight on, Also people about to enter a fight turn their body so they're a thinner target and their shoulders are ready for impact and combat. For most of those subtle reasons it makes for a slightly more dynamic pose.
- One great thing about women when they walk is the hip swing not only side to side but they rotate as they shift their weight from one foot to another. If you attached sticks to the hips of a woman the arch that they make would look like a little guy paddling a kayak, lol, its a weird mental image but hopefully illustrates the point. Anyway, getting a little bit of rotation in the pelvis helps to bring out that sexy walk vibe.
So something a bit more like this but with a little more "grr I'm about to kick your ass". She's got a lot of what I talked about. The pelvis tilt, the V posed feet, and the head tilt.
These are all minor tweaks and the examples I dug up are a bit extreme but I think if you dial in a little bit of each, you'll nail it... or rather make me want to nail it... heh. Looking good keep up the work!
I've found, as Mark said, rigging is a whole subject in itself that as an artist, it may not be all that worthwhile to become expertly efficient with. Of course a knowledge of how things are rigged later on would be highly valuable.
I'd personally recommend Digital Tutors Intro to Rigging in Maya. It's a full on hand holding guide to setting up a fairly decent, if basic character rig, with weighting and controls covered. Of course it includes things that may not be necessary like a reverse foot setup and IK, but those are only gonna make your life easier when it comes to posing, especially since it's not too much effort to add those things.
Also, I didn't read through the whole thread, but have you tried ZBrush for quick posing? I've found it works really well for just getting a quick presentation pose, especially for relatively simple characters. Of course when you get things like hard surface armor and accessories, it can be more time consuming and you obviously don't get the control over which things are rigid bound like you would from proper rigging, but you can pose a character in seconds just using the Transpose tools.
Also, for extreme deformations, ZBrush isn't ideal due to the lack of specified weighting, so you can end up with undesired results, but for a quick, simple 'hero stance' pose for portfolio presentation, it can't be beaten really.
:O Blend Shapes... /bow
At the risk of feeding the troll;
Seriously, I think the point trying to be made was that proper rigging, and I mean proper rigging with perfect weighting, intuitive controls etc is a subject all in itself, and is technical and time consuming to really learn and practice. Especially if you dont intend to be an Animator/Tech Animator.
Of course throwing a very basic rig together and using default weighting for the sake of posing a character is not too difficult, but there was still little point in your comment.
Perhaps then since you're so l33t you could show us some of your amazing rigs?
Builder_Anthony: thanks man
Mark: Brilliant stuff man, thanks loads for taking the time to offer such an in depth crit I shall take it all in and work on it over the next few days
Creationtwentytwo: thanks for the info on the DT tutorial, I shall have to track that one down. I've done some basic posing with zbrush and the transpose, I even tried the Zsphere rigging system, as you say its not bad at all for a basic huma pose, but as soon as you need to move fingers etc then it does tend to fall over itself a bit.
Super Happy Cow: I guess that its just a matter of what you need at the time, I just want to get a decent pose from a mesh for my folio site cos I'm more into character modelling for now, but If I were seriously thinking of going down the animatior path I would be totally digging into the subject rather than just skiming it as I am at the moment.....does that make sense?
anyway once again thanks for the feedback
http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=96&pid=1292
A month subscription isn't too much more than a single kit used to be though and considering you get access to their whole library, it's not so bad. Providing you always have Internet access of course.
http://www.curtbinder.com/blendshapes.mov
[ame]
I to am mainly looking for something to really speed up the process. If it exists. :P
Maya2011 starts to come close again with the addition of some advanced skinning tools.
As for the script in the video it was released, the download link still seems to work.
Download: http://www.kogenspage.com/content/scripts/Aw0.02.zip
Thread on CGTalk: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=813877
I wouldn't get your hopes up, and I probably wouldn't come to relay on it since it looks like the guy hasn't listed it on his site and doesn't look like he's working on it any more. One button wizards never really replace the knowledge and experience that comes with being able to do it manually. When the wizard breaks or fails you need to have that experience to fall back on. If you have enough experience with the tools you end up being faster than the wizard..
The method I mentioned above still is faster and more flexible. If they ever add deformable envelopes to skin they can do away with physique its the only thing physique has going for it.