CakeInferno
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Chloe - Rigging & Fur WIP
🕑 Added 2023-08-13 13:37:37 +0000 UTCAs of yesterday, Chloe's rig has been completed! Big kudos to Disregard67 for taking her on and bearing with me and my lengthy lists of revisions!
Her rig is far more complex than Zoe's, while still remaining easy to use. The latter was especially important to me after animating the extremely complex Bunsen model that easily took more than twice as long to animate than Zoe. Despite the easy to use nature of the rig, it still has controllers where it matters the most, including controls for lip sections, eyes, cheeks, nose, ears, and of course, detailed mouth controls, which are going to be crucial. Disregard already had a blast doing some test animations that show her general body movement and expression range!
Something that I'm quite satisfied with is the hand rigging, as Zoe's fingers were exceptionally hard to work with due to a topology so bad that even the best weight painting couldn't save it. I'm expecting to perhaps use her feet a bit more in future animations as well, especially after Acidic did such a great job remodeling them from the old Zoe rig, which had something that could best be described as bunny feet, hah!
Disregard was also so kind to include a few controllers that are a bit more nom-specific, such as a controller that brings out her tummy. Definitely good to have these features included right from the start, rather than them being an afterthought.
Disregard is also working on a dance animation since the lure of animating her to the Ankha dance was likely too hard to resist! I'm hoping that I can do a proper render of these at some point of the future, as they're pretty good material to have her fur tested once it's done.
Speaking of which, I've started working on Chloe's fur earlier this month, which is entirely being done in the latest version of Ornatrix, a fur middleware solution for Maya. I've had my fair share of experience with the software for a year or two already, which was direly needed, as the software is a lot more complex than the more simplistic plugin I used for Zoe. You already saw some Ornatrix fur in action on Zoe's rig, mostly in the big tummy 2 & 3 mini animations, though it has some issues with the old model due to its topology, causing her fur to flicker at some of her parts. I'm however expecting to have none of these issues with Chloe, as her model is perfectly clean!
Unlike Zoe's fur, Chloe's is supposed to be a lot shinier and glossy, not only due to her species, but also to underline her royal heritage a bit more. Her hair is using Redshift's new-ish physical hair shader, which takes actual gloss and translucency into account. I think the result speaks for itself, even just on her face alone. Note that I've only started creating her fur a few days ago, so right now only her head has fur attached. I'm still tweaking things here and there and will also have to add eyelashes to her later, something that we removed earlier since her previous polygon eyelashes really clashed with other elements.
Overall I'm pretty happy with the results so far whatsoever. Making her fur takes admittedly a lot more time than Zoe's, but the good news here is that it won't fall short in complexity and even surpass it. It's going to have proper direction, clumps, and flyaways as well!
Since Chloe's fur is supposed to be more silky and glossy, I couldn't go nuts with the clumping and flyaways, but I think once I'm redoing Zoe's fur, I can use these features a bit more prominently since her fur is supposed to be a bit more rough and diffuse.
I'm hoping to have Chloe's entire fur done within the next two weeks! There's still some tweaking to be done on her face, but I'm certain that once I'm past that, doing the rest of her body should be a lot quicker, as it won't require so much detail-tweaking as her face did.
Note that I still have a mini animation coming up before the end of the month, which will be a revised animation of the internal stomach model! Please forgive me, as it was admittedly something I threw together quite quickly, but I do need the time to focus on Chloe and getting her production ready for next month, in which I'm hoping to start working on the first animation with her!
Anywho, sorry for the long post! Hope you're having a super fancy weekend! :D
Comments
BubbaW
Your so good with animating expressions nice work!
CakeInferno
Glad to hear! This particular bit was animated by Disregard, but I might polish up his animation a bit and render it out with all the bells and whistles once Chloe is finalized! For now the animation has mostly been used for fur testing, haha!
Charles J Burgess
Her eyes turning black when she snapped, invoked a feeling of fear, but the good kind of fear. I don't know how to describe the exact feeling, but "good kind of fear" is the best I can do. It's a mixture of awe-struck and fear, and I love it.
Greg
The eyes!
Watts
Ahhh! So cute!!!
Vulpini 18
This looks great! I'm really excited for all of this!
abeman
Looking good
D-Riker-W gaming and lessons
Awesome
CakeInferno
Happy you like~! <3
CakeInferno
They came out quite nicely! Super happy to have you on this! :D
CakeInferno
Mwahahahah, glad to hear! :D
CakeInferno
Oh yeah, her mouth and such will certainly be shown in a future update! :D
CakeInferno
Not sure on if she's going to become her sister, but I've moved Zoe's remodel back to a later date. I already found a sculpting artist who is insanely talented and could probably do an amazing rendition of her that is very close to the original. As for an animation that includes both Zoe and Chloe, it would certainly be something I'd have to decide on in the future!
CakeInferno
So glad you like her! :D
CakeInferno
Thanks so much! And yeah, the new renderer is a massive upgrade over the old one I've been using. Chloe is built for it from the ground up, which makes for quite the difference! I must admit that I've actually decided against a hairstyle in Chloe's case. The hime cut wasn't too flattering on her, and after looking at various designs of Anubian jackals, I eventually decided that less is more in her case.
Jade B
Pretty!
Disregard
Happy to have gotten the chance to work with Chloe! Those animations were quite fun! More on the way too~
Ghostdragon
Chloe is turning out to be a real beauty~ My mind is already beginning to scheme, plot and plan. ♥
Beeny
You always give your characters such wonderful personality, easily the best aspect of your animations! Really liking the fur details and that outfit is VERY nice!. Now i'm really interested in seeing what her internal updates will be looking like, particularly her mouth details and physics, heh ^^;
Erick P17
About those Zoe models, I didn't quite understand. Will she be remodeled or will that be her "sister"? If she is your sister, does she intend to produce animations with her participation? My dream is a long animation of competition between zoe and another character, to see who can eat more prey!!!, like a tournament or challenge!
Erick P17
Damn, what an amazing animation!!! really a phenomenal job!! intend to make an animation that includes Maya and Zoe Together? perhaps vying for a "meal", or even making each other their prey!
Michael Lee Vogel
She is looking amazing
Jackaline
She's turning out incredibly! The upgrades to her fur are absolutely insane, it looks like she skipped a whole generation of hardware, haha! I'm glad to hear she was built with ease of use in mind, you bust your ass working on these animations so anything that makes the work flow easier is a comforting thought! So eyelashes and body fur are next on the docket, are you still planning on giving her a hairstyle as well? Looking forward to the next update!
CakeInferno
Hopefully SOON! :D
TherapyBear
Can't wait to see this anibian gal in action
