Major Project: Le Patissier Props Modelling

It is only a quick update!

Continuing with the props I have modified a few props that were previous modelled but also created a few more. I have also applied initial shaders which will be tweaked to create the a more realistic object.

Cake Variations

Piping Bag Fully Modelled

Wedding Cake with yummy cream!

Icing Details

Cherries with stalk!

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Fully Rigged, properly Skinned and Some Props

So from my last update, where the torso and the legs were already rigged, I moved to complete the rig. To have a better control of Olivier, I decided to make a modification of previous rigs i have used. So here I present Olivier.

Say 'Hello' to the world, Olivier !!

To enter a more geeky realm I will explain what I have done with the rig, 

• For the legs, I have used two sets of rigs, IK/ FK to have a better control when he moves. 
• For the spine I have used a spine curve with squash and stretch, which will help me to create exaggeration and ultimately squash/stretch. 
• The arms also have 2 sets of rigs, an IK and an IK with a springsolver ( to create a curved arm). 
• The head was done in two stages, firstly I created a few blendshapes for the mouth and eyebrows, for preset poses. and then clusters were added to help create better and various poses. 
• Finally most of the assets were also rigged, such as the buttons, the hat and the mustache. So then again more control I will have when animating. 

 

 

 In terms of skinning, I have moved onto correcting some skin problems that surfaced when rigging was done , but also did a few pose corrections to create a more organic and realistic character.

 

As you can see fat now will deform in a proper way. 

With this tasks done the character is ready to be animated, something i will start very soon blocking walk cycles.

Meanwhile other of my tasks was to carry on modelling the environment and props. A task I will try to finish in the following days. 

Thus far a few props have been modeled and are ready for a quick shader or a full texture. 

 

I will update soon with more progress!! Stay tuned! 

 

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Torso Rigged

Last week, I had my tutorial with Alan who helped me draw a plan for the following weeks. Indeed, the following weeks will be full of solid time working to get this animation at its final stage. Therefore, i am trying to move as quickly is I can through this tasks to arrive to animation and enjoy some of the time.

Therefore here is the characters body rigged, for the arms, i have added a simple IK rig but also a IK springsolver, which allows me to have the arms behaving like curves.

The hand controls and the squash and stretch feature on the arms is done, left is just quickly move onto the face.

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Major Project: Le Patissier- Final Animatic

Lately, I have been working on the latest task I have left behind from pre-production, finalizing the animatic. Therefore, I began filling in the gaps that were substituted with footage.

 With this animatic is a section, in which footage is still present, that sequence is to be further recorded for animation reference, as the this section of the animation is visualized in my head, the only problem is how to stage it correctly in drawings. because it will imply a lot of fore shorting and camera manipulation for the desired effect.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Skinned and Initial Rig

Yesterday, I had a critique presentation for this project, and I was able to receive a motivating words and feedback towards this project. with most of the work presented, it was mentioned that this following week is crucial to outcome of this project, therefore I decided to put all the effort and focus on getting the tasks that were behind done.

Therefore here, I present you the the progress done most recently.

Skinning was started and mostly finished, with only a few tweaks to be done after the rig is finished. however, the character is moving.

Character Skinned

As it was said to me, I have created a list with the controls I want to incorporate on the rig. With that done and ready to be presented to Alan tomorrow, I began to rig the character. 

Squash and stretch Torso

IK Leg Controls

FK Leg Controls

 On a more visually appealing note, I have also tweaked the lighting and shading on the character.

 by adding rim light shaders, the result is to have the character pop up and look less CG.

HDRI Lighting and Rim Shaders

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Bits and bobs

As the weekend, approached, and I have been working, I decided to do some bits and bobs to improve the character to make him look less cg and more like a cartoon character. therefore i added eyelashes and the mouth. although he will not make any sound it is always good to have this attention to detail to perfect the character.

 On a higher note, I have began skinning the character and by th end of this week I plan to have both skinning and rigging done. 

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Joint Placement

Here is only a quick update, I have moved into the rigging/skinning realms. time to get geeky!!


so far here is the characters skeleton.

I plan to move on these stages pretty fast!! he will be moving soon. :)

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Textured

With a few days off this week, I carried on texturing the character. As the head was already textured and shaded I moved onto texturing the body, and turn the horrible grey template shader into a character which is vivid and alive.

For the body, I have used the same approach by baking the ambient occlusion maps of the high poly version, I began to to paint it referencing to the actual high poly version. this allowed me to add extra detail onto the low poly version and emphasize the normal map already created.

So here is the character fully textured.

 

 

Now onto rigging!!!

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Major Project: Le Patissier Animatic Version 2

Here is a quick update on the animatic, I fully resolved sections of the animation that i feel confident with, further tweaks will involve changing the beginning to quickly get to the cake world, and swap the sections of the animatic where it is still a film clip. Finally I will add sound effects to the first part of the animatic.

More updates to come very soon.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Texturing I

I have began texturing the character, however this time I decided to take a slightly different approach, first, I added the basic colours for each part of the map.

 

Then I took the model to Zbrush and sculpted extra details in most of his assets. exporting and creating a normal map of the high poly version.  

 

After I decided for the normal maps to work better to bake the Ambient Occlusion maps of the high poly mesh and apply onto the texture maps of the low poly. 

 

 Then I wanted to get the most of the shaders without using any texture yet, therefore I explored Fake Surface Scattering. I chose fake surface scattering over the real one, because the results are slightly different while the real one gets extraordinary results which take your model closer to the hyper-realism realm, the fake one achieves great result and keeps it more cartoony, therefore the choice was purely due to art direction. 

 

With the shader sorted I began texturing the skin and the head map and so far here is the progress, Tomorrow, I plan to finish the characters texture and move fast to the rigging task.

  

 

 

The latest Progress with the specular map added.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Texturing Begins

Next on the list of character pipeline work, is texturing. Therefore, in order to begin texturing, It is a task that needs doing- laying out the Uvs.

 

With the Uvs laid out, I move quickly to sculpting extra details to the character and painting the textures in, for the time being I have block out the colours and created the shaders ready to apply the textures. 

 

Onto Sculpting!

 

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling Finished

Lately, I have been working in two main things for this project. Firstly I have been quickly drawing the few boards i needed to use on my version of the animatic. This, I plan to finish today and edit the animatic to near completion, allowing a few tweaks to be made after wards.
Secondly, I have been finalizing the character model, by modelling what was left. the character is now fully modelled.

With more confidence in this project, I move forward with the animatic and the character workflow, therefore I will be doing texturing,

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