Post Four

Just a short Post, I have just had a few ideas; my original idea was to have a skatepark for my skater to skate around but i just coud not get the shapes and plan right as you can see from the image below.
Another mass effort would be the camera angles, camera movement around the skate park so i have decided to scrap the enviroment, have the camera set in one place, have a reflected floor, a spotlight, and just animate the skater and the skateboard (wheels etc) to give the impression the skater is moving forward. maybe slide a ramp across the floor from right to left and animate the skater over it. thus keeping the effect of movement when in fact the skater is staying put in one place. something like the picture below.

Post Three

In this post i will be finishing my models body, the next step is to cut some new edges in the models legs with the slice tool, I will create some socks for my character using the same process i used for the sleeves and the shorts. Cut the old geometry make some new edges and move them down the legs creating some simple socks.
Unfortunately the legs are too large to fit into the ankles so some overlapping has occurred, this is simply rectified, by grabbing the scale tool and scaling the newly created edges into the models socks, I have made my model see through so you can see what i am talking about.
This process is repeated again for the boots; slicing the polygons and then moving the newly created edges inside the bottom of my models boot, scaling after everything is done to create a wonderfully simple visual effect. Then the last thing to do is to bevel out a foot for my character.
The next step was to move any vertices, or edge that i was unhappy with including the hands, for me there was no life in straight fingers so i started to bend them just to add some detail to my character.
Next i want to make a collar or neckline for my model, someplace his t-shirt ends and the neck starts, to do this i grab the cut tool, select edge mode and start to cut around the neckline in a complete circle.
Then with the line selected click the chamfer tool and create a second line next to the one created.
The next step is to select the outer line just created and move it up scale it on the different axis to overlap the inner line, this will hopefully give the impression that my model is wearing a shirt.
Next point in the creation process is to add some basic colours to the different sections of my models body. To do this open up the material editor, click on a new grey material, click the standard button and select the multi/ sub-object material type, if it comes up with a box select discard.
After this, set the number of colours to 5, and set up the colours you want, i have picked a flesh tone, red for his t-shirt, blue for the shorts, black for his boots and finally white for the models socks.
To get these colours to show up on my model i have to select the polygons I wish to colour, and in the polygon properties select the Material ID.
With the 5 colours set up and the polygons set to their corresponding ID, the model’s body is finally complete. The final thing to do is lengthening his sleeves and shorts because these seem to shrink when turbo smooth is applied. Here is the finished product, complete with colours and turbo smooth.

Post Two

In this post I will be trying to create my low poly character model using a technique I have learned in the last two years; the box modelling process. I feel that this technique will be the most simple to use for my model and just by using the bevel command a lot of progress can be made.

First of all I have created a simple ‘skater’ reference image for an outline for my model. When I am box modelling I will be able to keep to the outline. So after drawing it I have attached it to a plane in 3ds max and have frozen it in place so I do not mistakenly move it about.
I created a box in the front view port and gave it a few height segments and width segments, as this box will be my models body I have renamed the box ‘body’.
These next images shows how to create the arms; I converted the box to an editable poly, then selected the polygons I want the arms, one on either side, and by using the bevel tool, bevelled out the basic shapes for the arms and hands and neck.
Using the same process; selecting polygons on the bottom of the box where my models legs would be, I can bevel his legs too.
In edge mode I can select the edges of the bevelled shapes and click the loop button and then move the segments to a better position, I used the scale tool in the same mode to redefine my models legs and the shape, position.
If we were to add a turbo-smooth modifier now with 2 iterations our model will look like this, as you can see the smoothness of my model is what I would hope to achieve, it seems we are on the right track.
Now turn off turbo-smooth and now this is the part where I start to shape the body by moving vertices, in the top view port selecting vertices from the editable poly mode; I select the corner body vertices and start to scale the body on the x and y axis for a rounder shape.
Now in the front view port I select the vertices at the collar and the crutch to make the a better shape.
Now I start to move the vertices around the arms and legs until I am happy with the overall shape.
Now I want to create the sleeves for my models arms, using the slice plane and then moving the pane up to an arm, and positioning it very close to the first bevel I made for my models arms I am able to ‘slice’ a new edge in the polygons I selected.
Now repeat this process on the other side. Next we select the edges and move them closer to the models shoulders thus creating a sleeve! (I have made the model see through so you can see what is going on.)
Repeat the process for the other arm and then scale out the sleeve edges to fatten my models arms a little.
Now to do my models shorts exactly the same way; select the polygons you wish to cut, select the slice plane position and cut!
Then select them new edges and move them up the leg near the crotch area. Creating some really cool and easily created shorts! Now I turn turbo-smooth back on to see how my character is coming on!
From this image it shows that my models shorts need to be longer, as I doubt any skater would be seen dead in those shorts. But the basic shape is good now to add some more details!.

Turn off turbo-smooth by clicking the light bulb next to it, and grab that slice plane again we are going to cut some fingers!! In the right view port line up the slice plane on the models hands and cut two new edges, don’t worry about the other hand I might used the mirror tool to create that hand.
Now to bevel out a thumb with the thumb polygon (or where the thumb would be)
No in the top view port move the finger vertices on the corner of the hands away from the middle finger polygon, as I will select all three finger polygons and I will be using the bevel tool again by moving vertices the will bevel in different directions.
Now select the three polygons and bevel out a couple of times.
This is the part we will delete the other arms polygons, select the new arms polygons and mirror them so they appear on the other side!
Now I must attach the new mirrored object to the body by using the attach tool and then weld the vertices of the new arm and the sleeve together.
Turn on the turbo-smooth modifier to see what the fingers look like.
That’s it for this post, in the next post I will try to finish the model’s body and position the fingers into a better pose, and color the model using some basic colour ID’s in the material editor.

Post One

So for reference I have thrown a few ideas together in Photoshop for all of you to see what I would like to create. If you have ever played play station games and have tested your hand at Tony Hawks Underground, well that is sort of where my idea wants to be. Or the X-games skateboarding park with a solo skater doing a minute of tricks. I would like to add some face animation too but we will see how we get on.

Introduction

Greetings Everybody, it’s a new year and more interesting things to do, this year I will be studying character animation in 3ds max. I must produce a character to be used in a short animation sequence, typical of the types used in cartoons, or a TV programme or in a promotion or a web advert. The sequence may be with audio that I create in a sound studio and I must come up with a design (I already have a couple) and show some storyboards that I have discussed with my tutor. This sounds a demanding task so let’s get on with it.

Originally I was going to create a warrior in some armour and have him crash about the screen fighting the hordes of skeletons I put in front of him, and I started on the character and some of the armour, but hit many problems concerning this, I wanted to keep it simple but it soon started getting complex fast. I have scrapped this idea, there is too much work required of me to model the characters let alone do animation too. I have come up with a more simple but highly creative and entertaining idea of a skateboarder in a skate park. This way I have kept the modelling process to a minimum having now only to create a skater and the skate park. Leaving me time to animate and add sounds. I have had to start the modelling process again this week (3) in order to catch up with the allocated time I have set myself. I would like to model this scene in 2 weeks to leave myself 5 or 6 weeks to animate.