Minor - Reflective Statement

I didn't want to write this without first addressing the elephant in the room. My Premise. Something I had no choice but to drop. The person I commissioned the music from for my premise never met the deadline I gave them, and since my premise would heavily rely on the music (since it was a music video), I had no choice but to drop it and start fresh for my Minor. Part of me wishes things went differently, that I could be working on that project even now. But another part of me is happy with what I'm doing now.

My character/wordbuilding driven Minor project has been a bumpy rollercoaster ride. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Its been a challenge, but an incredibly fun one. I'm glad I had the chance to start over for Minor, to chase what I love to do.

Creating the World of Solumna was fun but challenging. I had my ups and downs with the project, and it took a while to get off the ground with the idea, but once I got going It was a fairly straight path forward.

I enjoyed designing my 3 characters a lot, and I think they represent the three races of Solumna well. I'm looking forward to making the rest in Maya too.

I ran into many problems while making Katherine. This is mostly due to the fact that during my third year I didn't make much progress with Jet Pack Jones, which meant a lot of the stuff from the tutorials I was doing for the first time and learning as I went. Which wasn't the best for me in terms of the progress made. If I had the experience with JPJ I think I would have worked faster.

My first focus for Major is to start modelling my two remaining characters, Alekos and Elisadora. I've gotten fairly fast at modelling and think I can get them done in a good time frame. My second focus is finishing the designs for the environments they'll be shown in and also refining the animatic. I also still need to finish the facial expression for Katherines model, but since I keep running into issues with the method we were taught, that's been put on hold for now until fixed. I didn't want to spend time fixing it that I could be working on polishing other things. But I will come back to it.

Another thing I'll need for my Major is to find someone to do the music for it. This will be done when I have my animatic finalised and finished.

Moving into Major I'm very excited to keep working on this project, It's been a fun ride so far with results I'm proud of.

Minor - Submission Post

Animatic

Making of

Turnarounds

Rig Demo

Title of Project: Solumna

This project is a character design/worldbuilding project. I've designed 3 characters to fit in the world I created. The aim is to have them elude to a bigger world and plot, without giving away too much straight away, wanting viewers to believe there's a bigger world waiting to be explored.

My personal goals for this project was to finish modelling one character and have the other 2 fully designed ready to start modelling in my major.

The agreed outcomes were one character modelled, rigged and textured, my making of and an animatic. As well as turnarounds for the character and their assets. However, I couldn't get the asset turnarounds rendered in time.

Minor - Animatic Version 1

This animatic depicts a "trailer" full of short vignettes for each of my characters.

Minor - Breeze Rig Demo

I've added breeze controls to any kind of mesh that would react to wind or breezes, such as the necklace, sleeves, hair etc. They also work with the movement of the rig and can be turned on and off. The only downside is when used they make the Maya interface and playback lag if turned on.

Minor - Katherine Breeze Control WIP

I'm having issues with the Delta Extracts Script to make my Mouth Blendshapes, So I've decided to start working on my Breeze Controls. I'm using Duplicates of the mesh in the background that are connected by blendshapes, to fake a breeze effect. This is done using Sine Deformers on the Duplicated mesh.

On all of them except the torso mesh, the settings are as shown below.

On the Torso mesh, it's slightly different, but I also have some skinning going on in the background.

Using the paint attributes tool, I took away all the influence from the Sine deformer and then bought it back in on just the sleeves. This way when I turn on the blend shapes from my control, only the sleeves move on the mesh.

Minor - Katherine Eye Rig Demo

Minor - Sword Rig Demo

@Alan - Minor - Katherine Skin Cluster Problem

I'm not sure when this happened, but at some point, the mesh deformed. Using the Skin Cluster toggle on her Inputs you can see the original mesh and the current mesh. I'm not sure how to fix this so I have the original mesh, it seems to have affected the torso, head and arms mesh, the necklace and the hair. I'm unsure if I should send the file to be fixed, or if it's something I can (hopefully) easily fix myself. I'm not going to work on the model while I have this issue since making the blink requires the skin cluster to be off, and if there's this issue of the mesh jumping then the blendshape might not work.

Minor - Katherine Rig Demos

Legs

Feet

Chest

Arms

Hands

Head

Minor - Katherine - Body Rig Finished

I finished the body rig for Katherine using a mix of the JPG Rigging tutorials (for the arms and legs) and the Year 1 Rigging 101 Tutorials (for the spine). I used different shapes than the Year 1 tutorial to make selecting controls easier.

Next I'm going to start on the Face controls, though I'm unsure on where to start.

Minor - Katherine Sword Finished with UVs

Finished the model and UVs for the sword ready to texture and apply toons to.

Minor - Katherine Skinning - Pose Space Deformers #2 - Lower

I finished the Pose Space Deformers for the Lower half of Katherine. I think the hip forward and back shapes look a little strange but other than that I like how they look.

Minor - Katherine Skinning - Pose Space Deformers #1 - Upper

It's been a few weeks since I updated with progress for my model. I faced a few issues while skinning and adding the Pose Space Deformers. But with the help of Alan, I think I've got the hang of both now. I've finished the Upper Pose Space Deformers and I think they look okay. The elbow looks a little off so I might adjust it in the future. I'm now going to move on with the Lower Pose Space Deformers.

Minor - Elisadora Orphographic

I finished Elisadora's Orphos today. I'm unsure if i'll get time to fully model and rig her, but I made them on the off chance I do get time when I finish Katherine's model fully.

Minor - Elisadora - Tertiary Protagonist Character Design

initial exploration 1-5

palette exploration a 1 - 5

palette exploration b 1 - 5

palette exploration c 1 - 5

palette exploration d 1 - 5

palette exploration e 1 - 5

The Eleva character of my project is Elisadora. A Queen from Ortus. She excels in magic and is very religious. In terms of the palette, I like exploration sheets A, B and D. I also like A5, B3 and D3. I'm unsure which to go for right now though. I don't want to repeat colours from Katherine and Alekos, so I'm trying to steer away from purples and blues so all the main protagonists are unique. So right now A5 is seeming to be the one I'll pick.

Minor - Alekos - Final Palette and Design

This is the finished Design of Alekos. The Grimm bandit leader from Ruina who will join Katherine on her travels of Solumna. I now only have Elisadoras design to finish and all three of the characters for this project will be designed.

Minor - Environment Design #1 - Ruins

Sketches for the ruins that will be present in the animated vignette for Alekos. I still have yet to finish the sketches for Katherine and Elisadoras environments. Katherines will be her Captains Quarters in the ship and include her looking over the map of Solumna. and Elisadoras will be a prayer room in her castle and have her praying.

Minor - The World of Solumna - Progress #2

I've added in the rest of Katherines Pre-Production pages. I'm happy with things are looking so far. As soon as all of Alekos' art is done I'll work on adding him in.

Minor - Alekos Orphographic

I finished Alekos' Orphos ready to start modelling him. I'll be mostly focusing on Katherine and finishing my other characters designs, references and orthographics for my Minor submission, but I'll be working on his model for my Major.

Minor - Elisadora - Tertiary Protagonist Character Design - Initial Sketches

Initial Sketches