Overview So Far...

As you have probably noticed there are two areas I have not carried on with in the last few weeks, one is the animation of a four legged walk, and the second is rigging the body.

I did not carry on with the walk because that rig was appalling and it broke everytime I tried to move the character. I also feel that this is a side project that I can complete in my spare time, and over the busy Christmas period I have preferred to concentrate on my rigging skills so I am ready to rig the characters for my final year film when they are ready in January.

Secondly, the book that I was using for the body rigging was rather old and had some spelling mistakes etcetera in it, and as I was rigging the back clusters it would not work. The clusters for some reason kept rising out of the body far above it once they had been parented. I tried parenting in different orders and undoing the process and starting again to no avail. To be honest I gave up on this a little to easily, but I want to complete a tutorial this week where I can rig all in one go rather than it being split up how it was in the book, with exception to the facial rigging of course.

Furthermore, I have found I really enjoy the facial rigging, although it is a longer process than I had anticipated. The process itself is quite easy to follow by painting the weights and creating the blend shapes, but it arduous to get the face to look quite right sometimes. I find myself keep questioning whether the mouth is wide enough or at the right angle. I think I may have to learn to be less of a perfectionist in order to get rigs ready on time for the industry, although with practice my skills should have improved and I will be quicker anyway.

I have one week until I have completed my Advanced Skills project, and have the following aims for the rest of the week:

1. Concentrate on facial rigging. Manage to get one face fully rigged and working.
2. If possible, create poses using this rig even if just still images.
3. Even better, create a lip sync using it.

4. Learn how to rig the eyes using a controller.

5. Extra: more dynamics - fire and water especially for use in the group film.

I aim to add a few more blend shapes to my face rig over the next few days, as I am visiting the Disney Animation Studios on Wednesday, and will hopefully be able to animate after this and finalise my blog over the weekend.