Data Management Trouble!

After a few months of crazy and sloppy working methods, I realised that I got to start organising my work files before it's too late! Well... It would've been great to control and "Curb My Enthusiasm" at the start of the work. Anyway. It's really serious to redecorate all files and folders in this stage. So let's hope I don't mess up 3 months of work...

Morph, Targets, and Whiskers

I was working on making some facial expression morph targets for the mouse Binky. Actually they all mouth expressions because his brows are seperate objects. Anyway, after modelling 21 morph target, I noticed that... well I didn't noticed actually because there is something missing on that characters face. Then I realised I didn't made whiskers for dear Binky. :) How good is a whiskesless mouse? Well, Mickey Mouse doesn't have one. But maybe that's because he shaves it a lot. I don't know. But I think I want Binky to have whiskers.
There is one tiny problem though. Placing thin whiskers around the nose area is easy. But they're intersecting with the model itself when morph targets are animated. There must be a way to stick them to the surface of the face, so they move with facial expressions.

Changed a few things...

This character rig is becoming like Leonardo DaVinci's never-ending inventions. I constantly add, try or scrap out new things. Most recently I've changed foot controls a bit... again. I realised that making if look fancy doesn't make it more useful. I think this one is more practical to select and rotate foot roll controller. We'll see about that. :) Anyway, now I'm creating some morph targets for facial animations. My Mouse won't be talking, so I don't think I have to create all mouth shapes for lip-sync. Fortunately, because making mouth shapes (an "o" for example") for a character like this is a bit tricky than riding a seahorse. :)

Funny Discovery!

Last night, when it's around 5:30AM that I was just about to sleep while trying to avoid thinking some numbers and expressions echoing inside my brain. Then suddenly I came up with an idea! An obvious, and simple way to rig the spine just the way I was trying to do with expressions over some days. It was so exciting really. I almost jump out from bed if it wasn't dawn, cold and scary. :) Anyway, I just tried it first thing on this morning and it worked pretty pretty pretty pretty good. All I've done is making a point helper at pelvis bone, position constrain it between neck (which is also stretchable) and hips control object and make it "Keep Initial Offset" so that it stays in it's "default" place. Now I can link 2nd Spine IK's helper to this point and it stays between middle/hip area no matter how much I stretch the spine. I think I still need to use expression for the upper part of the spine though. Not seem to possible trying same thing twice in one hierarchy. But it's not big deal anyway. I could just move on...

Making up expressions

I've been experimenting different ways to annoy myself by getting involved with maxScript lately. I must remember that making up expressions like "stay between ball.Z and box.Z damnit!" don't work in maxscript. One little typo, and it explodes like a pumpkin! It's really frustrating. But so much fun, really...

I'll try to explain every step that making of stretchy rig. Legs are easy enough. Arms are a bit tricky if you want it to be FK/IK and sugar on top of it. I'm working on rigging a stretchy spine right now, which is why I have to use expression to customize it the way I like. Hope to make it happen end of this year hehe. :)

Stay tuned...