The aim for this week was to build a 3D model in C4D of my main character which I have essentially done.
The character was built from extruding a sphere upwards rather than using the symmetry technique used on last years 3D model. This simplicity of the character didn't warrant symmetry. The mesh was extended upwards over two smaller spheres which were used as a guide to build around the eyes.
The nostrils and mouth were then cut, modeled built built into the face, the mouth design was developed a little further enabling more expressive animation later on.
The arms were built by joining 2 spheres together, the spheres were the basis for the joints and these were then built upon at the bas and then united with the main body.
The 'ear holes' were simply squares deleted from the main body and extruded inwards, the outer of the squares were knifed to create and extra polygon boarder which helped to control the rim of the hole to a desired effect. Once HyperNurbs are applied they smooth out the holes into circles these have then been distorted individually to prevent the hole thing looking too uniform.
The tail was molded from half a sphere and then then attached to the body after removing an area of the mesh.
The flipper was built and shaped from a flat plain which was duplicated and joined together, modeled to shape and then attached to the arm.
I had a little play with some lighting and rendering settings after applying a material (taken from C4D materials). It might seem like a waste of time but I find it easier visualise how the mesh is working if I can see how the skin reacts to light and texture.
Next it was time to create the eyes, I picked a mesh style on a sphere that would work best with the style of pupil I wanted so I could cut away a hole with as little distortion as possible.
The pupil was cut out and the hole was pulled into the eyeball slightly and a black disc was placed into the hole. This will enable me to animate the size of the pupil using morph tags later on.
I quite like these button-like eyes but have since added a sphere over the top with a transparent material applied to it to give the eyes a more glossy look. Remember I'm not using correct colour-ways at this time but it's useful to see how effects like reflections, etc effect them.
The screenshot above was take with the eyeballs plonked onto the top of the eye lids, which meant modeling the eyes properly. All I did was simplify the number of polygons on the lids and then open them up, re-shape them and add enough of a mesh to fold into the eye socked behind the eyeballs.
I encountered a slight problem when test rendering with global illumination and ambient occlusion, the eyes go black, logic lead me to finding a render setting to tick a tick box allowing it to process transparencies.
before (ignore the colour) after
Now for a real challenge which I haven't yet concluded properly. I draw a simple curved spline, select a circle plain and using a SweepNurb to create the stem of the feather after adjusting the size and shape of it within the controls.
The feather tag allows you to draw up the contoured shape of the feather and numerous controls allow the feather to be created in a variety of shapes from nice and neat to a real scraggy looking thing.
The results were fairly satisfactory but I wanted to explore another technique as I haven't yet worked out how the dynamics would be applied to both the feather spline and the shape of the feather core so that they would act like a feather when the arm is moved.
My other idea was to have no core for the feather and to Set Selection of a single point at the end of the arm, apply a hair tag and then apply a feather tag to the hair. This 'hair' instantly reacts like a 'hair' until you select the rigidity tick box and comb it to a curved shape. The feather is then built in a similar way as before.
The problem is, as you can see, I have some how ended up with a ghost feather (seen on the bottom right of the view port) I've somehow gained this by trying to use the set up of the old feather on the new one without having to set it all up again. The problem is when I delete it the other one deletes too!
Something to keep me busy anyway.
