My first human character on Maya. - Page 3 - Simply Maya User Community

# 31 07-01-2013 , 11:29 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Nice one Gen, good to hear you are on the surfer!!

You should post it

Jay

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# 32 08-01-2013 , 04:30 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Hey there, critter looks really nice to me. And don't give up on your project or feel like you let people down what you're going for is massive so it's not going to happen overnight take it as a bump along the road and bounce back Don't know if you ever came across this film https://thechaseshortfilm.com/ but I'm sure everyone told that guy he was mad as well.

Since you feel a bit discouraged for now how about figure drawing? You could practice pose and proportion, it's more rewarding than trying to do the whole 3D thing on your own straight off the bat. If you study staging and storytelling you can move on to doing your own boards and animation when you get to that point with the film project as well.

Here's some refs I like;
https://www.elfwood.com/farp/figure/w...struction.html
https://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.cz/2...rinciples.html
https://www.alienthink.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley
https://www.idrawdigital.com/2009/01/...nd-proportion/

Originally Posted by Miss_Nova

It may look nice, but it's only made with a bit of extruding, connecting the fins to the model (as I doubted that I could see them easily if I had extended them out of the body, sewing them to the body was easier), and use of shaders (no texturing done except for the iris and that was one of Maya's fractal textures, everything is just blinn shaders + transparency + refraction + glow).

That film has awesome action and effects, though the characters aren't quite perfectly human (kind of like how Pixar makes some of their characters, I'm not sure if I've seen a movie by Pixar where characters look kind of like in Final Fantasy movies for example).
Not that I will go for perfectly human either, just as close to human as I can (and I know there will always be room for improvements, but since our team has only one 3D modeler...)
I wouldn't have told the guy he's crazy, and nobody told me that I am crazy (no idea if they think so though), in fact, they asked me where they can learn about 3D modeling and I told them about this forum. But then one of them got his computer shut down by his dad due to exams he has at school... The other one is busy with his work.

I could at any time try to make the storyboards, as I already plan on making a comic strip as the final chapter of the novel which the animation series will be based on (each chapter coincides with an episode / movie of about 30 minutes or so).
But I don't know if I could handle that + the rest of the stuff I've already assumed to do.
The problem is how we divided the work for our team (we call ourselves Blasters District, don't laugh -.- we went before under names related to explosives, we used to be (-Piroteknix-) Team when we were making movies about a game we used to play together, and I did the video editing / special fx / some music).

Here are the roles we have / had for this current project:
My friends had to do:
- part of the rendering (especially those with pcs with more cores) (3 people, now only 1)
- storyboards (1, now 0)
- voice acting (4)
- logos (1)
- visual effects (1)
- video editing (1)
- music (1)
- 3D modeling (1, but unsure)

I have to do:
- 3D modeling
- 3D animation
- some rendering
- video editing / visual and sound effects
- music (all on synthesizers, trying to put a software to use for what it wasn't quite intended, which will be one of the hard but interesting parts of this project)
- scripting
- writing the story (already done 33 chapters, but only chapter 1 is important for the first project anyway)
- sketching the characters (will use MS Office Word for the fun of it, though I could have used Flash, I fail at drawing in Corel due to not shading properly, never could get the hang of shading while having the same image in my mind becoming reality). Will also sketch on paper, no color, just the outlines.
- some logo ideas

I know someone who uses 3Ds max to animate and model rather quickly, although she doesn't make perfect human characters. I wish I could be that quick with Maya, but then again I prefer Maya's rendering to Max's.

And thank you for the references, those will be useful for the comic and later on if I really can't find someone to make the storyboard.

Last edited by SilverFeather; 08-01-2013 at 05:40 PM.

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# 33 08-01-2013 , 06:08 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Was there some kind of short file in the works? That's a monumental task especially if you're trying to get your bearing in organics. I'm on Jay's Surfing Alien tut and I've churned out about 4 lumpy headed abominations and counting lol but but I've learned a lot (like I was overthinking some aspects and panicking, thus the lumps) plus it probably doesn't help that I'm going back and forth between projects. I say start small and stick with it.

Originally Posted by Gen

I didn't intend to study organics when I had the idea to start this project, nor to become any more awesome than (or even as awesome as) the people who have done human characters in movies such as in "How To Train Your Dragon", or "Wall-E" or the humans in "Ice Age".
Though I most likely will end up with something closer to real human characters, as I do not want to have the same style as Pixar and Blue Sky, even though I like a lot of Pixar's movies.
I'd aspire to make something closer to "Final Fantasy" style of characters, but not exactly, as that wouldn't be necessary since the series will be mostly comedy, with accent on character interaction, dialogue and scenery.
So I'd like to be somewhere in between the styles of Pixar's character style and Square Pictures' style. Not too non-human looking (except for the aliens which have big eyes and weird hairstyles but are still very human-like) but not too perfectly human-like, probably would be enough without real skin texturing even.
So that sums up the goal. But not sure of the approach in this case.

But I guess organics was important even for those that worked on the movies with less human-looking characters, right?

Last edited by SilverFeather; 08-01-2013 at 06:20 PM.

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# 34 08-01-2013 , 10:16 PM

Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006

Location: South FL

Posts: 3,522

@ Jay

I might start blogging about it, It'll really bug me to have more than one wip thread going and my office thread is still there and I haven't even posted the changes I made on that.

@ SilverFeather

Well if you're responsible for the modeling and humanoid characters are involved then yeah you're going to have to study/practice organics, regardless of whatever style you like. What I've learned so far from the Alien tut has helped me with forms that are not even organic, like I'm using geometry more efficiently while getting better forms and that goes a long way.

Sometimes you have to step back and decide if you're trying to go too big too soon. I think that is something we all have to deal with at some point or another because of why we get involved in 3D in the first place. We have ideas we eagerly want to see fleshed out but there is very little chance in learning all there is to know while tackling our dream project and actually have it turn out as desired.

You said you're doing the modeling and animating, I'm guessing that includes, UV layout, assembling/painting textures, rigging etc. Anybody familiar with Python or MEL? Whos doing the lighting/look dev? You said your friends are supposed to do the motion graphics and some editing are they doing the compositing as well? Not trying to discourage, twenty minutes worth of animation is a very big deal and not nailing down a solid workflow will just compound the problems that you're going to face anyway and probably create some new ones. If you still want to hang in there and do it, O.K, but it's perfectly normal if it starts to drive you a little crazy. user added image

P.S

If you're more comfortable in 3D, You could sketch using primitives, make some really simple geometry and paint over it, there are free paint programs around the net.

- Genny
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# 35 08-01-2013 , 10:36 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Cool Gen, that would be good to see. I also appreciate your comments with regard to the tute

best wishes
J

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# 36 08-01-2013 , 10:37 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

Yeah, I tend to bite more than I can chew, but I still don't want to quit. It doesn't drive me crazy though, just that sometimes I get discouraged by stuff that's not related directly to the process. In example: having a job (doesn't pay much, and I also work as a freelancer, again not earning more than $14 per computer fixed once in a blue moon), my fishkeeping hobby, friends not able to help because they're busy too, or sometimes just stupid stuff such as thinking that it might not turn out as good as I wanted it to, not due to the 3D modeling/animation, but simply because first chapter isn't as good as the rest of them.

Any textures that will be needed the friend that is doing some of the special effects / logos might help with. He's good at painting and creating textures.
I'm already working with lighting, the Solar System vid I was working on a few months ago taught me quite a lot about use of lights, transparency, shadows, glow effects and a bit about texturing (such as arranging textures to coincide with the meshes and look good, especially on the moons that are not spherical in shape).

None of us have any knowledge about MEL / Python scripts. The scripting I was referring to is the kind of scripting you do for a movie. Or something close to that anyway, it's basically the story, simplified into actions. Also the lines for the voice actors.

I didn't say they have to do the motion graphics. They do the rendering. None of them has much (or in some case any) knowledge about Maya at this time. So I'm still the one that has to do most of the 3D-related stuff. Rendering is easy, I can split the frames to be rendered by 3 more people with good pcs and we can have something like a render farm over the internet.

I forgot what composite was, does that mean putting the images together to form the video? I can do that in VDub and then use Sony Vegas for the rest of video editing. Not going back to Adobe After effects, Adobe stuff ticks me off for its huge resource usage and difficulty. That goes for Photoshop too. I'd rather use Corel (although it's not quite as stable, at least I can Ctrl+z to revert many more actions than one and not have to use ctrl+shift+z, and it doesn't use as many resources nor does it take that long to load)

When it comes to sketching, I'd rather use pen and paper (but freaking phone camera will make the image look pretty bad when I transfer it to the pc, this is when a pen and tablet would have been useful for drawing on the pc). On computer, I'd use MO's Autoshapes > Freehand draw, then auto-fill with either textures or creating shades. Or Flash MX Studio, in a similar way and it is easier than MO, but I'm kind of a fan of unconventional methods of doing stuff. Hence the idea of making a comic strip in Microsoft Office Word at some point.

Last edited by SilverFeather; 08-01-2013 at 10:47 PM.

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# 37 08-01-2013 , 11:28 PM

Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006

Location: South FL

Posts: 3,522

My bad, I envisioned motion graphics when you said logos and I know Maya is not needed for that. I assumed you meant screenplay when I read "scripting" and being familiar with MEL could get you out of some jams and make things easier in general. But anyways, I hope it all comes together, good luck and have fun and stuff! user added image

- Genny
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::|| My Maya FAQ ||::

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# 38 08-01-2013 , 11:59 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

My bad, I envisioned motion graphics when you said logos and I know Maya is not needed for that. I assumed you meant screenplay when I read "scripting" and being familiar with MEL could get you out of some jams and make things easier in general. But anyways, I hope it all comes together, good luck and have fun and stuff!

Originally Posted by Gen

Thanks. Good luck to you too.

I've made some logos and titles in Maya, such as this one (the title of the chapter in blue):
user added image

However, Corel's displacement effect had the ultimate touch in it. I didn't use the auto 3D text from Maya since I wanted a font that I did not have nor do I know if this kind of font exists already or not. I just wanted an A that will have that line extended. The rest of the text was whatever came out of extrusions and vertex merging.
For most of the other logos and chapter titles (including novel name), I've just used free fonts with added effects / paint but stated that credit goes to the ones who made the free fonts.
The logos that my friend has to make are the team's name (which will be similar to the font in the picture above), the series name and any other logos that might be needed on buildings, and on notebooks (in a school scene). We will not use the free fonts in it though, so we will have to make our own for everything except where normal (Arial) text is needed.

Only time I've used MEL was after I've read how to reset preferences due to some bug with Maya at some point (something related to rendering).

This animation could eventually work, but then I have a few questions that I am not sure who to ask, but the answers would help me know what I'd need to start with, but also to know if the idea itself is viable or not. Those things I do not know enough information about are what make me worry that I'm just dreaming too much and that it might never work.
Not sure if creating a thread about that here (probably in lounge section) would be ok, I'd probably get roasted like boar over a fire. Lol.
Or could I ask here about it? I do not know who around here is familiar with stuff about movies / stories in general.

Last edited by SilverFeather; 09-01-2013 at 12:54 AM.

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# 39 10-01-2013 , 11:56 AM

Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: Prague

Posts: 827

I have to do:
- 3D modeling
- 3D animation
- some rendering
- video editing / visual and sound effects
- music (all on synthesizers, trying to put a software to use for what it wasn't quite intended, which will be one of the hard but interesting parts of this project)
- scripting
- writing the story (already done 33 chapters, but only chapter 1 is important for the first project anyway)
- sketching the characters (will use MS Office Word for the fun of it, though I could have used Flash, I fail at drawing in Corel due to not shading properly, never could get the hang of shading while having the same image in my mind becoming reality). Will also sketch on paper, no color, just the outlines.
- some logo ideas

Originally Posted by SilverFeather

I'll call you mad then but moving swiftly along user added image

If you decide to restart that character try following Jay's tutorial here to block out the base.

https://simplymaya.com/siggraph/siggraph-day-two.mhtml

When you have the base done if you post up a new wip I'm sure you'll get some help from the nice modeling experts here on how to add res and turn it into something that looks good and can be animated. There's the hand modeling tut as well, combine those things and you'll be well on the way.

Also where's your image planes and refs for the character? Make sure you're not making any of these mistakes https://3d.about.com/od/Career-Resour...g-Modelers.htm

Another thing you should keep in mind is anatomy, I don't think you need to be the master wizard at it but to make credible characters stylized or not you need to understand some landmarks and underlying structures. This relates to animation as well, as the structure makes the function and if you don't know it your movement will look off.

@Gen: I'm about to restart lumpy alien attempt episode 2 starting to hate that thing with a passion user added image

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# 40 10-01-2013 , 08:20 PM

Noober than noob
Join Date: Sep 2011

Posts: 520

I'll call you mad then but moving swiftly along

If you decide to restart that character try following Jay's tutorial here to block out the base.

https://simplymaya.com/siggraph/siggraph-day-two.mhtml

When you have the base done if you post up a new wip I'm sure you'll get some help from the nice modeling experts here on how to add res and turn it into something that looks good and can be animated. There's the hand modeling tut as well, combine those things and you'll be well on the way.

Also where's your image planes and refs for the character? Make sure you're not making any of these mistakes https://3d.about.com/od/Career-Resour...g-Modelers.htm

Another thing you should keep in mind is anatomy, I don't think you need to be the master wizard at it but to make credible characters stylized or not you need to understand some landmarks and underlying structures. This relates to animation as well, as the structure makes the function and if you don't know it your movement will look off.

@Gen: I'm about to restart lumpy alien attempt episode 2 starting to hate that thing with a passion

Originally Posted by Miss_Nova

I already did restart it long ago, this is an older thread, but currently all I have is half a face, and then I was told to set the edge flow right, now the thing I need to figure out is how to make the edge flow right.
Another problem is that I did not use refs first, then I started to search for refs and found some, but now I don't know if again I have to start from scratch or I can use what I already have (not the character, the restarted face).

This is a backup of the restarted face. It had all quads (and I don't think there are any tris, unless the ear has one somewhere, I forgot), but probably not (scratch that, SURELY NOT) evenly spaced edge loops, and the nose needs to be re-done. I then started to remove some loops and try to re-do the whole arrangement of the loops. Should I pick back up on the backup instead of the one I'm trying to rearrange the edge loops on?
user added image

Last edited by SilverFeather; 10-01-2013 at 08:27 PM.

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