Decided To Stick with Particle Hair!

Hey guys,

Well, last time I mentioned I was in the process of deciding how to apply the knowledge I gained from working on the Over World short for Xam and Power Dog.

One of the things I was tossing around was whether or not to use the Jimmy style of modeling hair with the characters of Xam and Power Dog.  In the end, I decided to stick with my original designs and continue using particle hair.

I did this for two reasons.  One, I didn't like the idea of the animals in the movie not having real looking fur.  The second reason is in order to get the level of detail with molded hair I increased the face count of the models to extraordinary numbers and in the end, it was faster to render particle hair than molded hair.

So, once I decided on which hair/fur method I was going to use I decided to change up Thomas a little.  One of the things about the Thomas mode I was never satisfied with was his face.  It was a little to pointy for my liking.  So, I went back and softened his face up quite a bit.  I also updated his hair.  Six years ago, when I started this project, kids had relatively short hair.  If you've seen kids today, you know that's no longer the case.  So, Thomas will no longer have short, spiky hair and instead will have relatively long hair with no real attempt to style it.  You know, like kids today.  :)

Now, since I'm doing this after learning so much from my short, I decided to update T-Boom first and will update Thomas after.  Believe me, it's easier that way and that is a complete reversal from the way I used to do things.  That said, I have a comparison picture of Thomas 2 vs. Thomas 3 but because it's actually T-Boom and not Thomas his face is hidden quite a bit.  I know, I could have rendered him without the sunglasses, but T-Boom just doesn't look like T-Boom without his trademark sunglasses. 

Here's the pic...

So, what's different?  The body is still the same.  I only remodeled his head.  His new head is a little smaller and not quiet so sharp.  You'll just have to trust me on that at the moment.

What's next?  Well, I need to rig him up for movement and I need to do the shape keys for his speech and facial expressions.  It sounds like a lot but this is something I have quiet a bit of experience with lately and shouldn't take more than a day or two.

But, I'm on vacation next week and I don't know that I'll be working on the movie during that time.  I really need to recharge for a while.

So, I'll update you when I get back, unless I do work on this some next week in which case I'll update you then.

Hopefully that's not too confusing.

Later!