The past week saw me setting out to begin work on the tasks that laid ahead of me. The main of which was to start work on the prototype model that would then be rigged with Maya Human IK system ahead of being our placeholder character. The creation of this was rather simple after some initial research. I was able to use a few reference images to get a feel for how to build the simple ‘box model’. Though a simple solution I was keen to ensure an understanding of the human anatomy as I aimed to ensure the movement of the boxes would simulate as close as possible real human movement and constraints. Otherwise it was a simple case of generating a Human IK skeleton and then building the box model around this. Doing so did not take much time however the task was soon canceled.
The prototype rig that I created
The reason behind not finishing off this rig was because I was informed by Ed that he had began work on the player character model. He was focusing on getting the base mesh created which of course wouldn't change much, if at all, between now and going gold. This means that I will be able to create the custom rig for the character in one go. Ensuring that bone and joint placement of the skeleton are where they need to be. Resulting in being able to skin and animate the current work in process character model to then apply to the finished character model when done. In the long run it means that I won’t need to worry about the animations transferring over to the finished model correctly. Of course it is to be expected that some tweaking and work may be needed to finish off this but it is far less work than the original plan. Whats even more beneficial is that Ed has confirmed I’ll have the model in the next few days. So I've halt work on the prototype rig to bring studying for the creation of the custom rig.
Speaking of which it is worth noting that during my research last week I was able to identify the tutorials that I will be needed for the coming weeks. All of them are hosted on the website ‘Digital-Tutors’. A virtual resource to my learning for the following months and beyond. The main tutorial I’ll be following for the player character rig is the course titled ‘Rigging Game Characters in Maya’. I've chosen this course as the results, course material and the way it is delivered best fitted my search criteria. I am rather excited to study this course as I plan to spend additional time repeating lessons to ensure that I process and retain the information rather than simply copying it. Extra tutorials that I have bookmarked for later use include the ‘Pushing Your Character Rig Beyond the Basics in Maya’, ‘Rigging the Human Face in Maya’ and ‘Rigging Wings in Maya’. As the first boss for our game is a bird the wing rigging tutorial will be very important. In due course I’ll find additional tutorials to cover the bird and future bosses.
Some of the tutorials I plan to study
Moving forward from last week and the news ahead of coming days. I've set myself the goal of beginning to create the custom rig. At the same time however I have a key deadline for my dissertation and therefore need to allot extra time to that this coming week. Still, I’m excited to get the creation underway now.
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