3D Character modelling evaluation

Evaluation of the 3D Character Design

In this report, I am going to evaluate my character model and explain the processes of making this. I will be discussing what problems I came across and what ways I used to work around them. In the conclusion, I will also self-criticise my character model too.

For the past four to five months, I have been modelling a character. To come up with what I was going to model, I looked at what the brief asked for specifically: I was to design and create a 3D model of a humanoid character that was able to move and have expression. The program I had to use for this task was Autodesk Maya, a program used for modelling and animating by most of the films and games industries that exist today. Previously, I had experience of 3D modelling so the basics were straight forward however, making a 3D character model did prove difficult for me.

Character Design

Before I began I had to think about what I wanted to model exactly. I had previously done sketches of human characters in my spare time, which helped me decide what character I could model. One sketch I made was of a knight that had a falcon shaped helmet, dubbed as “Falcon Knight”. I found this one the most interesting and proceeded to draw a turn around and understand what I wanted to develop later on. I was then taught a technique to help me develop my character further called photo bashing. (Photo Bashing is explained in the appendix).
I found this process incredibly helpful to develop my character further because the three photo bashed documents I have (which are posted online to my blog) shows progress I went through to come up with my final design. Once I was happy I then created a dynamic pose of my character.

Character turnaround and Mesh Topology          

I translated my character to a final turnaround, one in which I would use in Maya. The turnaround showed the Falcon Knight’s front, left, and back views as they were the most relevant to me. I then had to note down the mesh topology that the model was going to display which was going to help me add segments onto a shape in Maya. This proved somewhat difficult at first as I had no idea of how to calculate the mesh topology of any 3D model but l later found out in tutorials online.

Modelling the character

With any 3D model, it does start off from a basic shape such as a cube, sphere, cone, pyramid, or cylinder. I had posted the process of my character in my blogs supported by animated GIF images of my model starting to take shape. I had first made a cube in Maya, added segments onto all axis (x,y and z) and deleted one side of the model. The reason why I deleted one side was because it made it easier to make a duplicate of the hollow box which would follow exactly what changes I would make.
As I modelled my character, I had come across several problems (Explained in the Appendix).

UV Texturing

Once I was happy with my model, I then went onto making my UV textures. The UV texture editor in Maya helped me to cut UV edges to then unfold and place onto my UV texture. I unfolded my mesh and made them much simpler to then work on. (The UV texture editor is explained more in the Appendix). I had the assistance of a UV checker to make sure that my textures would not repeat over themselves. My gloves and boots in my UV texture editor showed up as duplicates and therefore I had to spread them out equally on the texture. Happy with the outcome of the UVs, I then went onto rigging my character.

Rigging and Weighting

Learning before about the roles of character modellers in the animation industry, I found rigging to be easy and weighting challenging. I had placed joints inside my mesh and added IK chains and RFLs (Reverse Footlocks) on my character. (IK Chains and RFLs are explained more in the Appendix). After adding these, I then placed controllers over them to help move them around. Once I bound the mesh to the rig, I then had to weight the necessary areas so that the deforming joints would not affect non deforming properties. (Weighting is explained in the appendix). I had shown in my blog that when I moved the arms, they would make the visor look as though it is melting, which shouldn’t happen at all. I had sorted this problem out by posing my character and weighting the areas around the corresponding joints. Once I had weighting sorted, I had applied textures to my model in Mudbox. (Explained in the appendix)

Conclusion

From what I have learnt about 3D modelling, I have found that everything included for modelling is very technical. I realise that there are areas that I cannot miss out on in order to make a successful 3D character model. I have found Maya to be a difficult program to work in when making 3D models, but at the same time enjoyable as what I have produced makes me feel proud.

Appendix

Photo bashing
Photo bashing is a process in which the artist finds images on the internet of things related to a character they want to design (possibly linked to making moodboards), and depending how many different elements they are going to photo bash, they import them to Adobe Photoshop (or another program that uses drawing layers too) and place each photo over another in order. Once the photos are placed, the artist will then add a new layer above all the photos and start drawing the outline of the character using a graphics tablet. When they’re happy, they then colour in the design and reveal their creation.

Maya glitch encounter

One glitch I encountered was that made my character’s legs suddenly went invisible, though strangely enough at least two faces were visible. According to some online forums, they had claimed that it was down to the renderer in Maya. A way to ensure that errors and glitches don’t appear in Maya is to go to Edit>Delete all by Type>Non Deformer History. This gets rid of any huge amounts of data that sometimes messes the models up. Even trying this method didn’t work, so I followed a video that had explained to add a texture in and this brought my legs back to visible.

UV Texture Editor

The UV texture editor allowed me to map out my textures properly. I had previously explained in my blog posts that when uploading any texture into Maya, it will automatically map out the UVs which is sometimes helpful and other times, not. To place UV textures out, I had to go to Create UVs and choose one of the following: Planar mapping, automatic mapping, spherical mapping, cylindrical mapping and create UV based on camera. These would place the UVs and I would then need to unfold them to spread them out across the texture. To do this is in the UV texture editor window, go to Tools>Unfold and click and drag on the Unfold icon.

IK Chains and Reverse Footlocks

An IK Chain is where a limb, like an arm or leg will act as it should, bending at the middle joint. To make an IK Chain, go to Skeleton>Create IK and a tool pops up. To make an IK on the arm, first select the shoulder and then the hand, missing out the elbow. Selecting the shoulder then the elbow will not make the arm bend as the elbow is the bending joint. For the leg it’s the hip joint then the foot; the same rule about the elbow applies with the knee. I had also created a reverse footlock in Maya too by following a tutorial. This helped me to create attributes for my legs to have a footroll and a toe lift as well as a leg pivot.

Weighting

When binding together a mesh and a rig, the program will automatically map out the weighting around a joint. For my model I had both deforming and non-deforming properties that I needed to weight. The areas that deformed were the arms, legs, neck and fingers and the rest was to be non-deforming. To do this, I selected a mesh I wanted to work on and then _­the Paint Weight tool. In my tool settings, the joints all displayed. Selecting one joint that the mesh is affect by will show on the model. To add weight to something (e.g. the mesh is floating towards another joint), simply click on the areas of the mesh that you want to weight and it will weigh the mesh down to that joint, and to get rid of anything, holding down shift and clicking removes it.

Mudbox

As well as Maya being part of the Autodesk programs, another program that is part of it is Mudbox. This program allows you to import models as .obj into Mudbox and then add textures or mesh edits. There are various tools in Mudbox to help with almost anything when it comes to texturing, like adding diffusions, incandescence, bump maps, specular maps and many more. It is very useful with Maya as you can send a model straight to Mudbox and connect the two programs up together. A creative way to ensure that you can add fine details to a model is to subdivide it and add any sculpting or knife cutting to the mesh. When adding a paint layer, like a diffusion or bump map, Mudbox will ask you what type of paint layer you will want to create. Another creative way to add textures in Mudbox is a stencil, which used with the paint brush will create some amazing textures (depending on what channel you use).

Testing a human rig

Part of this brief had asked me to find and test a human rig. I had come across a website called Creative Crash, a whole webpage for animators and riggers to post their own models they have made online either for free or for a price. I found and downloaded a rig called the Andy Rig that was going to be part of my 3D animation project too. This rig was very useful as it can be set with different textures, the sliders for facial expressions were useful too, and the controllers for hands, feet, head, and body made it very easy to move things into position for key framing.

3D Character modelling blog smmary

Summary of 3D Modelling

In this report I explain briefly the key roles of modelling in an animation industry, and talk about the process of my model. This will be supported with quotes from books and my blogs I had made as well as searching the job roles of each in the industry on the internet.

The main job roles of 3D modelling in the Animation Industry

Through researching the different roles that are included with the 3D animation production pipeline, I had blogged on why each role is crucial by searching job advertisements and what the companies that were hiring were asking for specifically. The roles I needed to find were a character modeller, a character technical director, and a character rigger. Each of these roles form crucial parts in the production pipeline: the character modeller models the characters with help from the storyboards and design team; the character technical director works with the character modellers, riggers, animators, and the director of the whole animation pipeline ensuring deadlines are met; and lastly the character rigger who rigs a modelled character to a skeleton by binding the mesh with the rig and weight the limbs so that they work in the 3D environment without any glitches or unnecessary movement. Below is more about each role.  

Character modeller

The following quote supports what is essential that any character modeller thinks about when making their models.

                “Sometimes it’s easier to construct your 3D model with simple shapes first before starting any kind of complex modelling.” [Kater, 2005, P239]

Looking on websites, the role of a character modeller seems to be looking for someone who can model to a high detail. They also need to make sure that the model can be used with the riggers later on in the process and to make sure that the model is what the Director wants it to be. They work with them making sure that the concept art links up to the final model being made. They are expected to know software that is able to model such as Maya, Cinema4D, 3DS Max, Blender, or Mudbox and also know how to use UV textures properly when adding textures. They also need to liaise with the rigging department who will then add a skeleton to the character later, making sure they can go over any mistakes made. I feel this next quote explains more about UV texturing too.

                “If there are multiple identical objects, they will often be duplicated off of one existing mesh that has been unwrapped to maximize the resolution of the textures.” [Petroc, Lanning and Baysal, 2007, P44]

Sometimes, the character modeller needs to know how to make a deforming and non-deforming model. If they need to create a humanoid character, they need how it should deform and if they are making a robotic character, how that will not deform but still be able to move. This information is then relayed onto the rigger who will be told about the areas that need to be weighted.

Character Technical Director

The role of the character technical director is the leader of technical design of the character modelling and rigging process. They are recognised by the company that employed them as being one of the best character modellers and riggers and trusts them to ensure that the whole process of making the character runs smoothly. They create ways to work around errors and problems for the character design team, ensuring that they can achieve a nice workflow, and are responsible for setting up the pipeline for the staff to follow, allowing for the pipeline to flow evenly.

Character rigger

The role of character rigging solely focuses on making a skeleton rig for a character that will have the use of IK/FK chains that can be moved around nicely for when the animators use them. In liaising with the character modeller, they make the skeletons of the rig using the grid view, place the joints on the areas needed to be placed, and then place IK chains on the rigs that will make the joints of that whole ligament move. Once they make the rig, they need to ensure that it can deform nicely. If it doesn’t, the character modeller goes over the design in the area that needs to be fixed, then hands it back to the rigger. Once it works, the rigger then weights the character, ensuring that when joints move, they do not affect all the areas and only affect the areas that need to morph (e.g. when the rigger weights the arm, they need to make sure that the arm joint only effects the shoulder area to morph and not the sides of the body. A way to weight is explained in the quote below from an author explaining a way they made the character weight:

                “I pose my head and then tweak the weighting; by doing so, you can actually see the points move into different alignments, and it makes the tweaking of weights actually mean something visual.” [Osipa, 2007, P247]

This is helpful to anyone who rigs to help identify where things need to be weighted so that they can target specific areas to add weight on or take weight off. Sometimes, if a character has non-deforming properties, the rigger will also need to take weight away from those objects ensuring that the rig does not affect those areas. They will identify how the model moves and if the non-deforming properties need to be moved too.  

From what I have learnt in researching the character modelling process, I have seen that industries ask for people who know a lot about the technicalities of 3D character modelling, the program that is the most useful for the company, and how their skills and specialities incorporate into the industry.
For 3D modelling, I have realised that a lot of liaising needs to be made with the director and rigger, ensuring that the model works well before the animators use them.
For the rigging, they are only fed information from the modeller and director to put in the weighting for the character and send back any problems need fixing.
For the technical director, I have seen that they ensure that everything works well within a time limit before animating can begin.  

References

Kater, G, 2005, Design first for 3D Artists, California, Wordware Publishing Inc.

Osipa, J, 2007, Stop Staring Facial modelling and Animation Done Right, Indianapolis, Wiley Publishing Inc.

Petroc, Z, Lanning, K, and Baysal T, 2007, d’artiste Character Modeling 2, Mylor, Ballistic Media

Character Modelling Part 7: Texturing in Mudbox

In this blog post, I will talk about texturing my model in more detail using another Autodesk program called Mudbox to work with Maya. These two programs work together and can be updated their current scenes from both programs.

Texturing in Mudbox

When wanting to add more interesting textures, there are numerous ways to do this. In this instance, I have imported my character model from Maya into Mudbox, both are Autodesk programs. The GIF below shows the process of how to send a model from Maya to Mudbox.

To send something from Maya, first you need to select the necessary elements on the model you wish to send across to Mudbox. Then go to File>Send to Mudbox>Send as New Scene. This'll send the model to Mudbox and once opened, a green box in the bottom right corner of the screen will say "Connected to Maya" and next to it is a "Update" button. These steps are highlighted above.

Before I started to do anything to my model, I first had to select the faces on my model and subdivide the polygons in order to work with any tool in Mudbox. This is shown below too.

To subdivide polygons in Mudbox, first select all the faces (if the model has seperate objects like armour, helmet, boots, gloves etc.). Once it is selected, it turns yellow. To subdivide, press shift+D on your keyboard and it'll subdivide. I have subdivided mine twice as it helps to add detail smoother.

Adding a Bump Map

I decided that I wanted to add a bump map to my model, to add the slight detail metal would have. To do this, I selected the paint brush in "Paint Tools" shelf on the bottom and clicked on the model. Whenever you are about to paint on a model, a pop up screen asks what you want the output channel to be. For this, I wanted to add a bump map. Below is the process of the painting on Mudbox.

I first selected the Paint Brush, went to click the model and up came a option box to create a new paint layer. I selected Bump Map on Channel and selected OK. Once I had a paint layer, it appears in the layers channel on the top right of the screen under the Paint tab.
A choice of adding stencils to any paint or sculpt tool is available. I am now going to show what my actual model has in detail on the armour.

This is what I have been placing as a Bump Map onto my model. I used a stencil to add the details from the brush onto the armour using a low strength and a very large brush. The stencil I used is shown below.

When using a stencil of any shape, it places it directly over as a square. You can move the stencil around, rotate it, or scale it to help when making a stamping effect on the model instead of leaving it on one chunk area. The stencil will ALWAYS follow the editor camera. To move, scale or rotate the stencil, hold down S and use the corresponding mouse buttons (middle click to move, first click to rotate, and second click to scale).

Character Modelling Part 6: Controllers and Locators

In this blog post, I will talk about adding in controls on my model and I will also talk about the locators on my knees and elbows to explain why they are necessary.

Controlling the character

Whenever an IK chain is added to a arm or a leg, moving it becomes a problem because it'll move up, down, left, or right but the axis point will change. Adding in a control will help to keep everything in place and constrain the IK to the controller. Below is a GIF of the different controls I have made for my character.

As you can see on my model, I have added controls on my hands, fingers, feet, neck, hip, and a master controller. The hand controllers helps to move the hand around with ease. The feet controllers are almost the same as my hand controllers but both have attributes for my reverse footlocks to move the toe and heel. The neck and hip controllers simply move the model left or right. You'll notice a small circle next to the hands; this is the finger controller which I'll now explain.

Finger Controllers

When rigging fingers on the hands, I found it is a good idea to have the controller for the fingers on a separate controller. I added in attributes for the finger controller to move all the fingers on that hand when shifting the value up or down on each corresponding finger. Below is a GIF showing the index finger moving up and down.

The attributes I made for these fingers to move up and down are maximum 5 and minimum -5. I had placed four joints in the finger, corresponding with where they should bend at. I had to also weight each finger so that when a finger moved up and down, it would not move the tip on the next finger along, but move the knuckle part like a real hand should.

Locators

In order to make sure that when an arm or a leg bends it stays in proportion, a locator is needed to tell the middle joint to follow that part. Below are the locators on my model highlighted and why they are necessary.

When adding locators to an arm and leg, it helps them to keep the elbow or knee joints focus on that area so that they don't flip over themselves when moving the arm in or out, and the leg up or down.

Character Modelling Part 5: Rigging and Weighting

Once I was happy that my model was UV textured, I then went onto placing a rig onto it, bind the mesh and rig together and all the objects to deform nicely. Below are GIFs and screengrabs of the rigging and weighting processes I had done for my model.

Rigging

This GIF above shows the joints placed in line with the model as well as a reverse footlock for the legs and an IK chain for both hands. The root bone is essentially the start of the rig, and usually should be placed at the hip or centre of the body. The next parts I added in was the bone for the chest, then the neck, and head. The joints for the arms started from the chest joint because that was centre for them both. I had added three joints for the arm: the shoulder, the elbow, and the hand. I added an IK chain from the shoulder to the hand and by doing this enabled me to move the arm around. For the leg, I made a reverse footlock from a tutorial given by my tutor to make a foot roll, toe lift and leg pivot. Once I had rigged everything for the character, I then bound it together by going to skin>smooth bind in the animation tabs. I first had to select the mesh then the rig from the root bone to bind together. Below is weighting explained.

Weighting

An issue with binding together a mesh with a rig is the weighting. Whatever ligament you'll move in Maya, the weighting on that part will affect other parts of the character; parts that should not even move at all. Below is a GIF animation of what happens when my character has not been weighted properly.

You'll notice that when I moved the left arm, the left side of the mask was following the hand joint when it should never. To sort this out, the paint weight tool in Maya helps to paint where the weighting should be and removing areas that were affected before. Below is what the weighting looks like in Maya.

This GIF shows what my character is supposed to look like when the weighting is sorted out on each bone. When a bone is selected, the white area shows where it is weighted to and the black is where there is no weighting. By having the weighting sorted on this model, the arms will no longer make the face melt when they move. You'll also notice that the hand on this part of my model has a controller attached to it; this helps the IK move only towards that point and becomes mandatory for animating.

Character Modelling Part 4: UV texture

In this blog post, I will be explaining how I began to UV texture my model, making sure that when it came to placing textures onto my model, it wouldn't warp anything. Below I will explain how I did the UV texturing and show the stages in screengrabs and GIFs. To help me place my UV map, I had the assistance from a UV checker found on google. Below is what it was.

This checker helps to show where the seams on the UV map will merge and, where necessary, sort out where it warps.

Beginning to place the UVs

As you'll notice, the UV checker was spread across my character's face badly and when adding any textures on, it would look horrible and would possibly confuse Mudbox when it came to adding in any detail (bumps, incandescence, alphas etc.). This is what it looked like in the UV Texture Editor.

When loading any textures onto a part of a model, Maya will automatically place anything where it thinks it'll work best. Normally sorting out textures in Maya wouldn't be a problem but in this case, the problem would be that when adding any details to the texture, it will look horrible and therefore would need to be mapped better.
To sort this out, I would need to place the UVs from the visor and helmet onto the UV editor. Below is a JPEG of the UV texture when sorted and a GIF of the helmet and visor after the textures are sorted.

The helmet and visor in the GIF above show that I have placed the UV textures in the right area and that the seam would appear on the back of the helmet, an area which would not be seen mostly when coming to animate. The JPEG above shows what they look like when placed on the UV editor in more detail. Below is a GIF of where I added the UV checker onto the armour and boots.

As you'll probably notice on the boots, the UV is stretched. Originally I intended to just place a gold texture onto them and not add any detail but in doing so would make the model look boring.

In this GIF, I had sorted out the UV only on one boot instead of both because the boots were the exact same model and it was quicker to only delete one boot, UV texture the remaining one and duplicate it to then place onto the leg without a boot. Also this shows the armour from the front and also the arms are now UV textured too.

This GIF shows my entire character with all UVs added on in place to make sure that they would all fit when it came to putting them into Mudbox and making any extra details.

Character Modelling Part 3: Making the model

In this blog journal, I am going to talk about my model in stages, showing print screens from Maya as I modelled it. I will explain the changes I made during the modelling stage and why I made them.

Beginning the model

This GIF shows how my model began in Maya. I had placed two image planes behind and on the right of the of the model to start modelling. What I had also done was I started off with a shape that had one face deleted and used edit>duplicate special and clicking on the □ to bring up the extra options. To then make sure that whatever I modelled on one side would mirror, I then changed the scaling option on the x axis to -1 and clicked duplicate; I had a shape that would model exactly the same thing as my first object in a mirror. This was my first attempt at making my model to which I soon discovered an easier method to modelling.

I decided to start over on my model because I had difficulty when trying to make the neck of the character. I knew before that the armour is non-deforming and that the neck deforms in order for my character to look around. I then decided to make the armour and arms as one object. I discovered that there were problems with doing this as shown below.

When I put shoulder pads on my character, I had tried to model them as exact to the turnarounds when I had found that it was going to confuse the mesh when UVing the textures. Also when I deleted the first shoulder pad, it was hard to close up the hole as you can see in the GIF above. I then decided to delete that and moved onto making the legs.

As you may notice, I had added the colour to parts of the arm to experiment how I can place multiple colours on one object. How to do this was I selected the faces I wanted to be textured and after creating the textures in the Hypershade tab, I then placed the textures on by using the middle mouse button and dragging the texture onto the areas selected.

Glitches and Changes

During my modelling process, I had come across a severe glitch and also more modelling problems. Below is a GIF of the glitch I encountered.

The problem I encountered is shown in the GIF above. As I made more changes to my model and reversed the normals on my flipped object (that's normals>reverse), about 98% of the model became invisible and only at least a couple of faces were showing. I had learnt before that if anything goes wrong on Maya that usually shouldn't, I had to go to edit>delete all by type>non deforming history. Even after trying this method, nothing changed. I then went online to read about this glitch in some help forums and they claimed it was something to do with the texturing, yet no textures were added to this. Below is where the problem was fixed and how.

I added the black texture to the legs to get rid of the error and changed the renderer to Viewport 2.0. This fixed my model's problem and I was able to then continue modelling my character.

Finishing the modelling stage

In this GIF, it shows the last parts I modelled onto the character. You will notice that the visor design changes three times. This was down to when I was trying to figure out how to make the model simple instead of making a model with faces that consisted of three vertices, which would confuse Maya or Mudbox when it came to UV and texturing. Once I was happy, it was then onto UVing my model and texturing it.