Dominance War V - Animation - Goddess of Change - transfixion

[transfixion]

So it's march 27th and I've decided to join the war. Yes, a little late, but I'm just gonna stick with it and see how far I'll get. Also, it's my first time in here, so hello 3dtotalers. I'll be entering the animation category using the Lilith model by painzang (http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/view_entries/finals_1_3489.html).

The animation will be a 20 seconds debut/entry for the GODDESS! It's going to be a spectacular entrance that symbolizes her status as a Goddess. (Slightly modified taken from the contest guidelines). I have a few ideas of some possible shots, and I'll get to that at a later point. But first I'll do the rig setup to get started.

[liquidbear]

good luck nice to see someone in the animation part :D

[transfixion]

@liquidbear - Thank you! Yes, where are all the animators? :hmm:

So I've made the mesh a little more deformation friendly. In most cases straightening and aligning limbs. The tail is pretty much straight, the spine has less curve to it, arms, wings etc. The feet have been adjusted to make her able to walk.

http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/6366/110327straighteningoutf.jpg

The first thing I did was set the height of the character in proportion to the scene. I chose making her about 2 meters tall. And I also decided to make every grid line display 1 meter (1 unit = 1 centimeter). I'm including a mel procedure that sets that grid setting below.

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/7504/110327adjustingcharacte.jpg

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6062/110327gridsettings.jpg

//Visualizing 1 meter per grid line (1 unit = 1 cm)
proc oneUnitOneCm() {
grid
-divisions 10
-displayAxes 1
-displayAxesBold 1
-displayDivisionLines 1
-displayGridLines 1
-displayOrthographicLabels 0
-displayPerspectiveLabels 0
-orthographicLabelPosition "edge"
-perspectiveLabelPosition "axis"
-size 100
-spacing 100 ;

//Set grid color
displayColor -d "gridAxis" 1 ;
displayColor -d "gridHighlight" 2 ;
displayColor -d "grid" 3 ;

//Set greater clipping
setAttr perspShape.farClipPlane 10000 ;
}

[washka]

Gl onto the comp' man, model has already a rig or?
Hope you'll get somes nices moves, and that the wings will participate. :)

[transfixion]

@washka - Thanks! The rigging will be a part of the challenge I guess. :lame:

So now I have most of the basic joints in place. I still have a couple more joints I want to add for better deformation, on the shoulder and elbow especially. We'll see if I'll get around doing that soon. And I made this chart over things I thought about while placing out joints, just for fun. :haha:

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/7202/110327basicjointsetup.jpg

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3938/110327thingsithinkabout.jpg

[wil_himura]

Welcome, thanks for joining! I'm really interested, I didn't have what it takes to arrange an animation so I'll follow your thread, we shall support our animators ;)

[transfixion]

@wil_himura thank you for stopping by my thread, and for the support :)

I did the bow rig today. I set it up so I only have to animate two controllers (yellow rings). The rest is automated to keep things simple. I went with using the distance between the handle and the string, which feeds rotation to the bow limb joints with multiplier values on top to adjust how much each joint should rotate as I draw the string. There's also two little arms in there (brown joints) which I chose to put an IK on for each arm.

As for the Goddess I've done mainly mel scripting and different setup tests. I'll post more on that later. Turns out this character has become a little rigging challenge as well since there's so many animatable parts in there. :)

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/9585/110330bowrig.jpg

[koyima]

Niceee..! Any larger shots.

[transfixion]

@koyima - Larger shots of the models? I'm using someone else's model where larger shots can be found here (http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/view_entries/finals_1_3489.html). :)

The reference post. I'll update this page when I find new reference material.

Goddess
<div style="margin-left: 24px;">
<hr />
Wings

Video - Long Eared bat hovers towards camera then flies away, UK (http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/1B05322_0008.do?assetId=clip_16345592" TITLE="reffff)
Video - Slow Motion Bat Flying (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjIwXRLwadU)
Video - Flying Foxes fly overhead, Australia (http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/1B05718_0005.do?assetId=clip_16292901)
Video - Daubenton's Bat catches Large Yellow Underwing moth at night (http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/1B05294_0002.do?assetId=clip_16296738)


Tail

Video - Yellow lipped sea snake swims from camera through green ocean. (http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/1BQ9208_0040.do?assetId=clip_20606132)
Video - A snakes swims across the top of a body of water. (http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/3456306_64903.do?assetId=clip_1939517)
Video - Moray eel swims to camera, Panama (http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/1B07531_0004.do?assetId=clip_16333240)


Ballet

Image - Arched back, flying (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_er_Nmxnv4TM/TH_9ws0LfQI/AAAAAAAAAnE/jgEac3ZGyA8/s1600/ballet.jpg)
Image - Lifted, pulled, acrobatic (http://artistesduglobe.com/Previews/Cambre_sm2.jpg)
Image - Reaching for, pulled (http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/.a/6a00e39823a9018833013480f16941970c-pi)
Image - Looking down at, expression (http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/.a/6a00e39823a90188330133edbcab3b970b-pi)

</div>
Boss/enemy character
<hr />
<div style="margin-left: 24px;">

Image - Jaws of death, tiger fish (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LbccUVbSRd8/RdtTnVPJ4cI/AAAAAAAAAYg/h6uzKqj4SbA/s400/tigerfish_jcpoiret1com.jpg)
Image - Tiger fish, slimy (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZelggTu08hA/TSbAhHiL42I/AAAAAAAADII/K6Q10CpA0Zw/s1600/goliath-tigerfish-1.jpg)
Image - Doom Monster (http://www.gamedev.ru/files/images/doom_monster.jpg)
Image - Sea serpent (http://www.tomlytle.com/Resources/SeaSerpentBlack.jpg)
Image - Angler fish (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/146/398032677_dfab408834.jpg)

</div>

[liquidbear]

@liquidbear - Thank you! Yes, where are all the animators? :hmm:

less on the field easier to score a goal m8 :P

[washka]

Strong reference! I should do some ref page too.

[transfixion]

@liquidbear - not many days left. I'm not usually a pessimist, but .. :o
@washka - video reference, and especially slow motion hi speed cam stuff is my weakness hehe

So I've brushed dust off my mel scripting skills, and made setup scripts to make rigging a breeze. At least for the most basic setups. I have basic joints and meshes saved out in each of their own files so I can import and build me a character using these scripts based on what I need for an animation. The scripts are suitable for any orientation on joints by giving different arguments to the procedures, which will make them usable for me on other characters in the future. :)

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/967/110403rigsetups.jpg

Doing this much mel scripting made me go a little :wall: on the default script editor colors (Maya 2011), so here's a couple of new ones I'm using:

// Pythonesque
displayRGBColor -c syntaxText 0 0 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxKeywords 1 0.466667 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxStrings 1 0 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxComments 0 0.5 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxCommands 0 0 1;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxBackground 1 1 1;

// Sharp
displayRGBColor -c syntaxText 0 0 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxKeywords 0.4705882072 0 1;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxStrings 1 0.4666666985 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxComments 0 0.5000076294 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxCommands 0 0 1;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxBackground 1 1 1;

// Festive Dark
displayRGBColor -c syntaxText 0.8389261961 0.8389261961 0.8389261961;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxKeywords 0.919463098 0.4290828109 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxStrings 0.7986577153 0 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxComments 0 0.6912751794 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxCommands 0.1176470518 0.6509802341 1;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxBackground 0.0805369094 0.0805369094 0.0805369094;

// Visual Studio
displayRGBColor -c syntaxText 0 0 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxKeywords 0.168627426 0.5686274767 0.6862745285;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxStrings 0.7254902124 0.1686274707 0.1137254909;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxComments 0 0.501960814 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxCommands 0 0 1;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxBackground 0.980392158 0.980392158 0.980392158;

// Default
displayRGBColor -c syntaxText 0.7843137383 0.7843137383 0.7843137383;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxKeywords 0 1 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxStrings 1 1 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxComments 1 0 0;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxCommands 0 1 1;
displayRGBColor -c syntaxBackground 0.1647058874 0.1647058874 0.1647058874;

I also changed the overall look of the gui to a happier one:
"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe" -style plastique

Other styles:

cde
motif
cleanlooks
windows
monolith
macintosh

[transfixion]

<embed src="http://img607.imageshack.us/flvplayer.swf?f=Pbum" width="320" height="260" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>

A walk cycle to see how the rig setups are working. Maybe I'll animate some more on it later like adding wing and tail animation, and brush up the rest of it. But this animation will not be used later, so it's not that smart to spend too much time on it. She will be flying most of the time too.

I will start making the boss character she'll fight, which will be a serpent like creature I figured. Just make it huge. And also it'll probably be easier to animate than something planted on the ground. I toyed around with the idea of duping up the serpent so I get a multi-headed thing which could come in handy when setting up the shots.

[wil_himura]

I like that self confident style :P Good job with the rig!

[squarefighter]

Hey there fellow animator! How's it coming along? I'm entering kind of late as well, just started my WIP thread.

Did you retopologize the mesh a bit? It says we're allowed to 'add tris' but not 'alter the base mesh', so I'm not quite sure how to interpret that. I'm going to use the Boofis character from Foreverending, and it looks like they just decimated the crap out of him in ZBrush...

Looks like you've got a really good start on everything. I'm not really sure how this challenge works, so I don't know if we're competing against each other or if we're on a team competing against other websites... Either way, Good luck!

[transfixion]

@wil_himura - thanks :)

@squarefighter - Welcome aboard and best of luck! :D I think it's forum against forum? There's some info on the Dominance War site I think. And I didn't do any retopo on her, I think it kinda works with the given guidelines for this comp. I wont be doing any nice render or anything I think.

Just a quick little update. I made a low poly bad guy at 448 tris atm. There's a cap at 750 tris for each character, got some tris to go then. :) It has 3 animatable controllers, one at the base, another at the head, and a jaw controller.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1905/110407448tris.jpg

[washka]

Hey man, great thread so far! Your walking cycle is a good start, continue on this way!