Critical Analysis & Technical Summary

Critical Analysis

 

Tsvetan Hadzhiivanov, 09009560

 

Modelling

 

Overall, I am pleased with the model as the character is easily recognizable and it has good facial topology except for the ears but because they weren’t animated it was not an issue. There are, however, mistakes, which could have been avoided with more planning. The body of the character is too wide and so her hand movements are much more restricted. Furthermore, the arm pit areas are also too wide and could have been improved. My biggest mistake was deleting the history and working on a high resolution version of the character giving myself much more work on the texturing, skinning and blendshapes.

 

Texturing

 

I am pleased with the results as this is my first attempt at proper UV layout and I managed to avoid stretching of textures and seams at least not any that can be seen. I also managed to give Mudbox a go at texturing and found it really easy. The only big problem I would say was the automatic map on the ear but because of its topology a proper layout would have taken up too much time and wasting too much UV space in general.

 

Rigging, Skinning, Blendshapes

 

The rig was fairly simple and functional. The corrective blendshapes on the elbows worked nicely and for next time I will try adding blendshapes for the shoulders as well. The skinning on the shoulders isn’t brilliant and I will try to do some exercises and tutorials over summer. The facial expressions were quite creepy but I think the eyebrows require more variety.

 

Animating

 

Overall, I am happy with the animation of the body and facial expressions and I believe the lip syncing has good timing. I will probably go back when I have more time and more edge to the body, shoulders and arms at certain moments. What I found hard was to keep the facial expressions during the lip syncing as the shapes had unexpected results when they morphed with each other – this can probably be fixed by testing the how they would react with each other and modifying them as necessary.

 

 

Technical Summary

 

Tsvetan Hadzhiivanov, 09009560

 

The base mesh was created using box modelling techniques such as extruding, cutting edges, mirroring, etc. The model was then imported into Mudbox as an .obj file as it was easier to smooth out undulations in the high resolution version of the model. The low resolution model was then imported back into Maya and after some final adjustments I used the smooth tool on the mesh. Unfortunately, I deleted history and continued working on the high resolution model, which increased my workload. I created the UVs for the model using planar mapping for every part of the model except the arms and ears. For them I used a cylindrical and automatic map respectively. I then refined the using the UV editor. The model was again imported into Mudbox where the texture was painted and later refined in Photoshop. The rig is controlled with Forward Kinematics, except two IKhandles on the shoulder joints. The controls were created with NURBs curves, point, orient and aim constraints and the attribute and connection editor for the movement of the fingers. Two corrective blendshapes were created for the arms. I skinned the jaw to help with the creation of the facial blendshapes and afterwards removed the influence of the ‘jaw’ joint. The only problems encountered during animation were some Gimbal Lock issues on the shoulders, which were fixed by adding extra keyframes. The background was created in Photoshop using two images from the following websites: www.despicableme.com/theatrical.html#/gallery/image/img6

gallex.deviantart.com/art/Blood-Splatter-119465886

 

Done