CGTalk Unofficial Rigging Challenge

This is what I've been working on recently:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=442120&page=1&pp=15

It is a good opportunity for me to further my skills and research into new methods and techniques. So I'm putting in quite a lot of effort into it. Hope it will turn out great!

Transition Phase

Alright long time no updates. Not because I've slackened. But new job, new responsibilities, and new environment take some time to get used to, and also to pick up new skills for my new job.

Nevertheless, finally got down to design and setup a mini pipeline in my home computer. Ways to automatically setup my personal tools, menu and development environment.

Collaboration with friend seems to have come to a standstill due to super busy schedule of his.

Next up, revamp of my rigging system. Wana get this done quick. May get to use it in work in later stages. Excited about it. :)

Shape Shifter Part 3 - Corrections

Long time no updates. Been busy with many things recently with regards to my job. So now that most stuff have been settled, I'll be back to my personal projects.

Firstly, some notes regarding the Shape Shifter tool. I realise there are problems with the Shape Shifter method I listed out in my previous posts. The corrective blendshape created using that method is in the joint's local space, which means that if other joints are moved other than that joint in question, the shape will go all wrong. That explains why my characters looks funny in some way even though I did do corrective blendshapes on them. Ultimately, I'm still back to using Comet's PSD tool.

Next, a friend of mine is in the process of conceptualizing a stylistic muscular character and he has already found a friend to model it. I'll be doing the rigging for it, and will attempt to combine cartoon rigging with some muscle simulation to maintain the volume. More details will be given when most of the things have been finalized. Really excited about it. Would definitely be a great personal project. Nothing beats having fun with a bunch of friends with common interest and aim. :)

Shape Shifter Pt. 2

I guess it wouldn't harm to share the workflow, since there are no replies...

1. Move the character into the problem pose.
2. Duplicate the geometry to be corrected (A). Duplicate it again (B).
3. Sculpt and correct (A) until the desired shape.
4. Apply both (A) and (B) as blendshapes to the original geometry. I find that using the "front of chain" option yield the best results. Then set the weight of (A) to be 1 and the weight of (B) be -1.
5. Move the character back to the neutral/bind pose. You should see your geometry having some wierd deformations. This is perfectly normal.
6. Duplicate the geometry again (C). Delete the previous blendshape created, and both (A) and (B) can be deleted too.
7. Apply (C) as a blendshape to the original geometry. Done! This will be the corrective blendshape you require, which can be driven via set-driven keys or using the poseReaders plugin by Michael Comet.

The script still need some cleaning up due to some workflow issues. I'll try to put it up ASAP.

Next on the To Do list:
1. Muscle rigging. Attempt to setup a full muscle rig using Judd Simantov's free cgmuscle plugin. Aim is to understand the full muscle anatomy of the human body and attach them to the correct positions.
2. Revamp my auto-rigging script. The first version was done quite some time ago, which ever since then I've been using it in production without much time to further improve on it. There are lots I've planned to improve on, so I'll definitely do this somehow.

Shape Shifter

Remembered that some time ago, I was reading about the way to do corrective blendshapes from the HyperReal series from Alias Masterclass. Even though there are already lots of corrective blendshape solutions out there on the net (Not forgetting the powerful PSD solution scripted by Michael Comet), I kinda like the approach from the class. It's simple, and yet does the job well.

I even scripted the workflow out into a simple tool, but not sure whether am I allowed to share this. Let me email the relevant people to see if I can do so.

Would be adding an additional tab to the tool for setting up set-driven keys easily. Might add in the workflow using the poseSpaceReader to drive the the blendshapes.

First Step

Gotta take this first step out...

Started this blog to force myself to still learn and experiment much more of rigging despite my really packed production schedule...

Hope to have something out to share with all...