Finished Dragon Model

Throughout the modeling process, I have looked at other models in order to ensure that the topology of the dragon is correct and when it comes to rigging and animation, the model will deform correctly. When comparing my dragon to my previous quadruped model (alien from VFX) I can see the improvements that I have made. The topology around where the legs join to the body are now a lot better and this will make sure that there are no odd deformations that take place. I had this issue a lot with my alien model, but hopefully with my dragon this will not occur. I also constructed the feet in a different way, the edge loops on the dragon's feet are more ideal as this will allow for better bends in the feet. I've taken a lot of time going back and forth with the dragon as I know first hand how topology can really affect a model and the animation. Animation is my main goal for this project, so I have to make sure that the model and rig is of a high standard. As I want to try out joint based rigging in the face, this also needs good facial topology in order for it to work correctly. Below you can see both my VFX alien model and my dragon model, being of a different shape and design, the topology will be slightly different anyway, but I like to think that I have improved a lot and this will hopefully benefit the coming stages.

Because of the shape and design of my dragon, I had to figure out the best way to connect his head to the body, as there is not much of a neck so space and edge loops were limited. It took a while to do and I had to start over a few times but I think this version works and I will just have to take my time weight painting, ensuring that each skin deforms properly when the joints move. Throughout modeling I made use of the sculpt geometry tool in Maya, this helped me smooth out areas of the geometry and also relax certain places, giving a better flow to the edge loops and the topology. It has helped a lot to smooth out the lumps and bumps of the geometry and I'm really happy with how it has turned out. From here I will be going on to UV mapping the dragon, before taking it back into Mudbox to add some textures. 

Mudbox

I wanted to take my dragon model into Mudbox to create a more rounded shape and to also add a few extra details such as the brow. I had a few issues with taking my model into Mudbox from Maya, one of them being t-shapes. T-shapes are when three or more faces share an edge, and therefore cannot be subdivided. To get around this problem I found out that the major area for this was the wings, and because I needed my wings to be of the geometry I had already created, I separated them from the main body. I only imported my dragon's body and will attach the wings on again once finished.

Once in Mudbox I used the grab tool to start shaping my model and smooth off the round edges, from here I then subdivided it in order to add more detail when sculpting. Using the wax tool I could build up layers to the geometry whilst still keep the topology. I used this for the brow and also to add more shape to the legs. Mudbox is really useful for pulling and pushing parts of your geometry into new places, I was able to do this with much more ease than I would have been able to do in Maya. There are a few more things I need to tweak and work on with the model before I go onto UV mapping and texturing. I'm hoping to texture my dragon within Mudbox using the painting and stencilling tools, but I'll have to look into that further nearer the time.

Dragon Modeling

I've started to model my dragon earlier than I had originally planned as I'm waiting on a few other things to be sorted before I move onto my storyboards. With my Dragon model I'm planning to take it into Mudbox where I can add more detail through sculpting. At the minute I have the basic dragon shape minus the final eyes and inside of the mouth. I added in the extra details such as the spikes and wings because then I hopefully won't have to retopoligse my model. If you add on any extra geometry you will have to retopologise. I want to give my dragon a more curved and round shape and I think by doing it in Mudbox it will be the easiest way. In Maya there are tools to smooth and sculpt geometry, however it's not as accurate as I would like. Within Mudbox you are able to add new subdivision levels (creating more polygons) and this will allow more accuracy when sculpting, and also a high level of detail can be added.

You can see my progress below. Using the t-pose that Sophie had created for me, I was able to use this as a guide for proportions and details such as the feet and wings. As I was modelling I found that there were a few things I had to change. Once you start creating something in a 3D space, things may need adapting and in my case it was the feet/claws and how big the legs were. I was worried that the legs might cause some issues when rigging and animating so I have made them skinnier in the width. Right now my dragon is still very boxy but once in Mudbox I will be creating a more smooth and round shape to him.

Modelling my alien character

I started modelling my alien character about a week ago and I have now gotten to the stage where I am just adjusting the topology to ensure the lines flow correctly, this not only produces a cleaner model but it will also help the rigging, weight painting and animation stage. Modelling a quadruped was something new to me so I made sure I looked at reference a lot of the time to get a better understanding of the shape and build of an animal. I really benefited with the advice I got from my friend Jacob as I would send him images of my model and he would give me feedback of what I could improve. I also learnt a lot of new tools and techniques with the modelling workflow e.g. duplicating half of the model as an instance, this allows you to adjust one side of the model and it will do the same on the duplicated half. This is a good way to work as you can constantly see the transitions you make and don't need to keep mirroring and deleting faces. The sculpt tool in Maya is a really quick and useful tool which helps you even out the edges of your model, it makes it a lot cleaner, before I did this the mesh was quite messy and I would not have been able to take it much further without cleaning it up first.

You can see the stages of development from the pictures below and I'm quite happy with how it's turned out, it still needs tweaking here and there before I am able to move onto rigging. As you can see the tail was originally down but I was advised that for rigging purposes it would be easier if it was modelled straight. The one thing I could have done different is the way I attached the legs, ideally they would have been attached to the side of the body and the edge loops would have flown a lot better; but instead I connected them to the bottom of the body like I would with a biped character. Hopefully this shouldn't impact on it too much but I shall have to bare this in mind for next time.

Modelling our second character

Carrying on from the previous blog post, I have now completed our second character. He has turned out really well and I particularly like his facial features, he is such a stark contrast to our main character and I think the contrast will work great when they are put together. Due to time constraints I am not going to be able to UV map and rigging the second character as I know the animation is going to take me awhile, so I have passed these jobs onto Lija. Learning from our previous character we are going to smooth him first, delete unnecessary edges and then UV map him. This character has been quite simple to model compared to Gloria, however the hands were a bit of an issue, as he is quite 'chunky' and stubby I had to work out a good proportion for his hands, hopefully they'll be alright when it comes to rigging and weight painting.
 

Second Character

I've started modelling our second character, the boss man that is judging our main girl throughout the training course. Using the turnaround from Lija (found HERE) I did the same process as before to turn them into image planes to model from. I did a really rough model of this character a few weeks ago so the head didn't take me that long to do compared to our woman character. The bit that is taking the longest at the minute is his clothing, I still need the adjust it quite a bit as the clothing should really reflect his personality; stern, disciplined so the clothes should be sharp and in form.

At the minute it's just in smooth view but I've tested it a few times with it actually smoothed and have found that the braces in particular don't work too well so for them, I think I will just use soften edge. This is quite useful as like it says, it almost softens the edge, giving it a smoother appearance yet without adding any extra faces to it; so this is almost ideal for games that have a poly-count.

Modelling our first character

So modelling has begun on our character and I have started with Gloria first (our main character). Lija has been doing research into proportions and other attributes to help refine Gloria, which can be found HERE. Along with this she gave me the t-pose which I turned into image planes to model from within Maya. There were different iterations of Gloria, mainly with and without the coat, this was really helpful as I was able to just concentrate on blocking out her main body first and then change the image planes to add in the coat afterwards - found HERE. Throughout the concept art stage and creating the t-poses Lija would constantly get feedback from me to make sure it was looking okay and if any adjusments needed to be changed. This worked out really well as I could advise her on what I would be able to model and if anything may have been too complicated for myself to make.

Throughout the whole process I have tried to keep the mesh simple and the topology clean, whilst keeping the poly-count low. I probably spent the most time on her face as I didn't want her looking too realistic but I'm hoping the textures will emphasise this even more. To keep things simple her head and legs are not attached to another part of the body, they are simply placed within the clothing. When it comes to rigging and binding it will all hold together, I will just have to weight paint it in a particular way in order for her waist not to show through the coat when she moves.

The bottom of the coat was a bit of problem solving for myself as when it is rigged it will have dynamic curve which will create a more fluid motion that we can easily animate. Because it will be moving I had to create it so it would be able to move about so down the middle at the front, the coat is not joined. Also with it going into Unity afterwards I have to remember about backface culling - if the normals are not reversed one side will not show up. I duplicated the outside of the coat and reversed to normals to get around this issue, so hopefully all will be fine in Unity.

I spent awhile on her shoes too, it probably wasn't necessary as the viewer might not even see them that well but it just adds to the extra detail. I extruded certain parts and merged the vertices to create 'laces' of some sort. They aren't perfect and there might even be an easier / better way to create them but it's what I was able to come up with.

The next stage is to model her hat, this is another separate geometry, however will not be attached through the rig as we need it to fall off at certain points. I don't think it will need rigging in anyway as it may just complicate things. After this I will get on to unwrapping her so I can pass the UV map onto Lija to texture. Whilst she is doing this I might go onto rigging her or move on to modelling our second character.