Chip



CHIP CHARACTER PROCESS AND CHARACTER RIG Chip – Character Process Step One

The first step was to block out character using basic shapes. The basic shape consisted of six and eight sided cylinders for the arms, torso, fingers, and legs. The head was a twenty sided sphere scaled into an alien like head shape.

Step Two The next step was adding more detail using extrudes, combining objects, merging vertices and using the edge loop tool to increase the number of poly’s for finer detail.

Step Three

 Then the base mesh was exported as an .obj, imported into Zbrush and sculpted. A normal map was exported from this character. The mesh was then imported back into Maya. The eyes were then created using spheres being scaled to fit the eye sockets of the character.

Step Four

The character was then unwrapped in the UV texture editor and textured using Adobe Photoshop. A normal map was exported out using Zbrush, the specular and diffuse materials were done entirely in Photoshop.

UVs with diffuse material.

Normal map

Specular Map

Finished product

Chip - Character Rig

<span style="font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Step One - Setting up the Skeleton   

<p style="margin:12pt0in;line-height:16.5pt;"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">This involves going in and adding joints to the character. To do this,  your character needs to be in wireframe mode (make sure the mesh is in its own separate layer and its in template mode so you don’t keep accidently selecting the mesh). Now you can add your joints by switching between the different orthographic viewpoints. Start under the Animation tab, going into Skeleton drop down and clicking on the box next to Joint Tool. This will allow you to add joints. Starting with the left foot, work your way up the body., hitting enter when you want to complete a chain. Make separate chains for the leg (hip, knee, ankle, ball toe) and for the arm (collar, shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger bones)  Make sure that all the joints are on the correct axis and name your joints. Then going under the Skeleton drop down, click mirror joints and you have the right side of your skeleton. Now add the spine joints and the neck and head joints and root joint below the spine. And the base skeleton is complete once all joints have been named.

<span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:11pt;line-height:16.5pt;">Step Two - Setting up IKs and controls 

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">We will need an IK handle for each leg (connecting from the hip joint to the ankle, the ankle to the ball and the ball to the toe) and an IK spline handle for the spine. After these have been created, we need to set up reverse foot controls for each foot. And you will parent the IK handles to the reverse bones.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">And the controls are fairly simple to create and set up. You will need to make multiple NURBS primitives Circles and shape them to the body. You need to make controls for all major joints (Foot, Knee, 2 Spine Controls, Collar, Shoulder, Elbow, Wrist, Fingers, Neck and Head). Make sure you Freeze Transformations to zero out everything. Connecting them involves using several different things, such as parenting, orient constrains and pole vectors.





<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Step Three – Binding the Skin 

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Binding the skin involves connecting the joints and controls to the mesh. Take the mesh out of template mode. Select the root joint, spine joint, and both collar joints and then select the mesh (the bowtie will be bound separately). Under the Skin drop down menu, select Bind, then Smooth Bind and the box next to it. Make sure the appropriate boxes are checked off (see image) and then click bind skin.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">In order to bind the bowtie, simply click JUST the root joint and the the bowtie mesh and repeat the above binding steps to bind the bowtie to the skeleton. This allows for the bowtie to deform correct and not move.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Step Four – Painting Weights/Component Editor 

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">In order for the character to deform correctly, weights must be applied to each joint; this dictates how much control the joint has on the skin. Hover over the character, right click and select Paint Skin Weights tool. Weights work in values of 0-1, zero being no influence and one being max influence. Blue is zero and red is one. You paint directly on the mesh and it looks sort of like a rainbow. Select each individual joint in the hierarchy and paint accordingly.



<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Cambria","serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">However sometimes finesse is required and you can’t get that with painting weights, so the component editor comes into play. This allows you to edit individual vertices. Tedious but this allows for maximum finesse and control over your skin weights. In the example picture I have a vertices selected from the left leg, and in the component editor under smooth skins, you can see that the right hip has some control over the left leg. This is not what we want. So we simply enter in a value of  “0” and the right leg no longer has control over the left. The competent editor is great for tough to reach spots like the fingers and the face.  Step Five - Finished Product

Now all you have to do is test the rig and make sure everything looks okay and that the character deforms correctly. Once that is all squared away, the rig can be shipped off for animating and texturing. :)