Another custom rabbit WIP

[PsychotropicDog]

Well here's some views of it so far:



The very front look at the face needs some work.. eventually.

The eyes are just nurbs placeholders.

Unless there is a good reason not to, I will likely redo the ears as an extrusion from the head.

Yes there are n-gons, they'll get fixed, and there is still lots of sculpting to do, but I am happy enough with it to put it on display.

[rudel_ic]

That looks sweet! Keep it up!

You have to test it early though. Particularly transitions between joints can be a bitch.

[PsychotropicDog]

I know the shoulders on the model are not far enough apart to line up perfectly with the Lugaru skeleton, but I am hoping it will be close enough. I should make a rig based on the Lugaru skeleton to test it.

[PsychotropicDog]

Well I made a symmetrical rig based on the 'Basic Figure'. Joined the meshes and made some UV's.



It's a smooth bind with '1' influences, essentially a rigid bind that's easier to work with.

The only actual 'problem' looks like the shoulder, and I've allready got the work around for that - I will smooth bind the shoulder and rotate it into place for a better deformation, then remove the connection to the skeleton and tweak a bit. Then test it with the 'rigid' bind.

First though is more sculpting.

[cachiporrin]

very nice

[PsychotropicDog]

Well almost enough modeling on it:



Need to make some poly eyes. They are in the same location as the default model because I was not sure if that was important.

The shoulder will need more work then I had hoped to get it to work with the Lugaru basic Figure.

UV questions...
I plan to mirror UV's rather then the front / back of the default model.

Blood marks on character ... another PNG overlay?

[rudel_ic]

Need to make some poly eyes. They are in the same location as the default model because I was not sure if that was important.

I'm not sure either. There's some stuff about the eyes I'm not sure of.

UV questions...
I plan to mirror UV's rather then the front / back of the default model.

Well, you can of course have interleaving UVs.

Blood marks on character ... another PNG overlay?

The texture for scratches and stuff is bloodfur.png. It's a UV-independent lookup texture, as far as I'm aware. So you should leave it as it is (or refine the scratches), but I don't think you can change scratch locations on it and expect it to work.
bloodfur.png has no alpha channel, so black seems to be the alpha alias.

[PsychotropicDog]

I plan to mirror UV's rather then the front / back of the default model.

Well, you can of course have interleaving UVs.

They will not overlap or anything, just be 'split' down the middle instead of the sides.

Blood marks on character ... another PNG overlay?

The texture for scratches and stuff is bloodfur.png. It's a UV-independent lookup texture, as far as I'm aware. So you should leave it as it is (or refine the scratches), but I don't think you can change scratch locations on it and expect it to work.
bloodfur.png has no alpha channel, so black seems to be the alpha alias.[/quote]

A lookup texture? What is that?
If it is UV independant then I don't have to change it to make it work
Is it anything like a projection?

[rudel_ic]

A lookup texture? What is that?

Well, it just means that Lugaru takes scratches from it, and the specific texture locations depend on severity or something.

If it is UV independant then I don't have to change it to make it work
Is it anything like a projection?

I think so.

[PsychotropicDog]

Shoulder - about the best compromise I could come up with. Some interpenetration of triangles will occur when the shoulder is rotated past -50º (red meridian).



Other options - detach / semi detach arm, will produce a different visual weirdness.
There might be some clever option I am not clever enough to see.
Because the skeleton is not symmetrical the right side will behave slightly differently, hopefully it will not be fubar.

[rudel_ic]

Other options - detach / semi detach arm, will produce a different visual weirdness.
There might be some clever option I am not clever enough to see.

Semi-detach seems to be the best option, with shared edges along the top of the shoulder. If the bone start and the forementioned edges align, it should look okay.
Also makes sense to let the part of the pectoralis major muscle that's on the side of the arm get into the torso. That way, if your arm rotates up, it'll always stay 'connected'. Maybe even make it a semi-spherical thing that goes into the torso and has the torso-arm join edge(s) north (front view) with the skeleton idle setup.

[PsychotropicDog]

Well I tried skinning the default model to my pseudo Basic Figure.
Deciding which verts to be controlled by the shoulder joint - tried a few combinations, but ultimately I can not be certain.
Guess I'll ask - is there a way to know which vertex group a vertice belongs to according to the actual game rig?

rudel_ic's animation viewing scripts would be ideal to discover how the shoulder challenge was originally dealt with, if I could see the mesh.

[rudel_ic]

Well I tried skinning the default model to my pseudo Basic Figure.
Deciding which verts to be controlled by the shoulder joint - tried a few combinations, but ultimately I can not be certain.
Guess I'll ask - is there a way to know which vertex group a vertice belongs to according to the actual game rig?

rudel_ic's animation viewing scripts would be ideal to discover how the shoulder challenge was originally dealt with, if I could see the mesh.

If you want to see the vertex groups applied to the old rig, do this in Blender:
- Import Body.solid
- Select the mesh in Object Mode
- Import the skeleton "Basic Figure"

Then, you can
- Select the Body mesh in Object Mode
- Switch to Edit Mode (TAB)
- Deselect all with A and
Go through the vertex groups to see which is which in this thing:


- Select vertex group name (s12, for example)
- Click "Select"
- To deselect all, press A in the 3D Window until nothing's highlighted

Edit: Animation import onto a Body.solid is in the works, patience.
Edit: Note that the rigging stuff isn't fixed yet, so the group names will change. The partitioning remains the same, of course. We talked about this elsewhere.

GTG, HTH

[PsychotropicDog]

Got it, thanks.

Though I am not sure if I am going to change from my above compromised shoulder - it looks slightly funky in the T stance but I might settle for it - I will have to let it brew in my head a bit.

[PsychotropicDog]

Here's the most unflattering shot of the semi detached shoulder:



It alleviates some of the stangeness, but has some new oddity. The shape seems a little better when it moves, at least in the shoulder.