Making Some Progress On Max's Face Rig!

Hey guys,

Well, I promised I would work on Max's face rig this week and, as promised, I have.

I initially didn't want to post anything because I am so far off of where I need to be, but I felt like I needed to give an update despite how awful the rigging looks.

So, are a couple of pics that show what kind of control I have at the moment that also show how far I still have to go...



Pretty terrible, huh?

Now, If I wanted to make this look better, I certainly could have, but it would have taken a lot of time and that is what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to have to spend 30 minutes to make a pose look good. I want to move a couple of controls and have the perfect pose as quickly as possible.

That means I still have much to do.

That said, I better get back at it. I have a feeling I still have 10 hours worth of work until I've tweaked this to the point I want.

Wish me luck!

An Inadvertent Break...

Hey guys,

I admit, I haven't done a whole lot on the movie this last week but I had no idea until I clicked on the blog that it had been 10 days since my last update!

Rigging is really kicking my butt and I decided to take a breather for a couple of days. I truthfully can't believe 10 days have passed since I last worked on Xam and Power Dog.

So, I promise to re-double my efforts this week and see if I can at least get something done on Max's face rig.

I'll let you know how that goes.

March Madness...

Hey guys,

Well, March hasn't been kind to Xam and Power Dog. More specifically, it hasn't been kind to me trying to animate Max.

As I've shown, getting his body rigged is a pretty easy process. The problem I am having, and have been having, is getting his face rigged. No matter, what I try, I just can't seem to make it work.

So, I decided to build a very easy and simple model, something with little features that would require a very basic rig and, being the Whovian that I am, I decided to build a quick model of Doctor Who's cute, little Adipose character.

Right now, like Max, I only have his body rigged but I wanted to do a quick test video and this is what I got...



Again, this character is from BBC's Doctor Who. I wish I had thought of this adorable, little guy.

So, as you can see, I'm still working on the movie. True, it may seem like I've gone off into the weeds but I really believe working with the Adipose I will get a better understanding of basic rigging.

Of course, I'll keep you posted.

I've Been Rigging on the Max Cat!

Hey guys,

Well, I've gone through literally half a dozen face rigs since I last posted.

It makes me sad, because I really liked what I was doing with the shape keys that allowed me to get the pics you see in my previous posting, but I could never get them to work right.

Since then, I've tried other ways of rigging the face but I just can't seem to make anything work. Rigging a face is considerably more complicated than rigging the body. Either that, or I'm just making it difficult.

Still, I will continue to work until I find something that works for me. Now that I'm looking at the earlier pics, I really like what I see. Perhaps I will revisit the shape keys. That truly is the best looking expressions I've been able to produce.

I'll keep you posted!