ZBrushCentral

Requesting Partner for WIP Demo Project: Dragon > Need Maya Rigging and Skinning

Hi, I am a new Zbrush user. I have completed the practical guide and 3 of the Gnomon Zbrush DVDs, and feel I am ready for my first cool character, a Dragon. I am also a Maya user, but of course have never made models like Zbrush makes inside Maya.

I have always wanted to create a dragon. I thought about waiting a few months till I had a good character already made, before posting any of my learning work up on this forum with such amazingly talent, as I am still a newbie to character modelling…but decided to risk being embarrassed in order to see if more expericenced users saw mistakes or room for improvement in my very first attempts at creating the dragon…as well as searching for a partner to share an create animation effort with.

So far, I am on Day 1 on my Dragoon, I spent a few hours Placing and manipulating Zspheres. Anyway, the Wings were challenging. I made some very non-typical dragon wings…I think I may be able to manipulate them to make them work. I feel it looks like it could work, even tho I guess they wont look like the more traditional dragon wings. I can remake the model if a better way to make the wings is suggested. As is, I am going to make each Tri section smaller and more concave like a wing holding a bubble of air.

I feel confident that as I continue to model and refine this dragon, that it will look pretty good. I think I understand alot of the tools now, but not all of them. I want to have a 10 second animation of My Dragon, Flying, Landing, and Breathing Fire that I will create with Emitters and Particle Dynamics in Maya, and a Text Effect I will composite in After Effects with Maya component footage.

However, I do not yet know how to Skin or Rig characters. I bought the Gnomon DVDs but havent had the time to learn this as I have been focusing on Zbrush only the last few weeks, and actually dont want to be forced to take the time to learn Skinning and Rigging before advancing my Zbrush Sculpting Skills…which I must say has recently become my biggest priority in Life…LoL…

I hope to find a Partner who thinks my character and storyboard are interesting enough, that they would be willing to use their knowledge of Rigginng and SKinning in Maya to help create a 10 second demo animation for promotional purposes,usable both by me, and by any partners that work on the piece.

I am looking for someone to do:

Character Rigging and Skinning (MAYA PLEASE) and anything else you do…additionally any other creative collaboration would be great, if that person can do rigging and skinning…which is what I need most…

Otherwise, I may have to just make a nice Still Image…, as I need to make more characters, rather than animate this one, as my primary Goal.

I am a 34 year old Multimedia Designer, who is responsible, dedicated, and obsessed with learning and advancing in Digital Character Modelling. Meeting like minded individiuals would be a blessing. I will contribute any work I can, and also Sound Design, effects, and music for the animation piece. Plus any modelling we may determine to either or both work on. I can put the time in to make something cool, and hoping to find someone who can too.

I was hoping to find someone who is Maya proficent to partner up with me to make a SD or HD 10 second Zbrush Demo animation for mutual use.

Please email me if you are interested at [email="mn8multimedia@gmail.com"]mn8multimedia@gmail.com[/email] . I would love to see any examples of work.

I am not sure how to prepare the model for animation either, and dont really understand using the morph target, and how I can efficently pose my models. I was hoping to get a little direction for how to proceed or even a really good, thorough tutorial. I am open to any info that will help me procede, so I can make an animation using my character in a short, simple, story boarded script.

[img]http://www.mn8.net/images/mn8_dragon_zmesh.jpg[/img]

If you would like to see the low resolution rough Storyboard plates, and some other of my first Zbrush work these last few weeks to determine if we can work together, check this page out on my website.

[http://www.mn8.net/zbrush](http://www.mn8.net/zbrush) Thanks, MN8 -Anthony [http://www.mn8.net](http://www.mn8.net/)

wowza, that’s a lot of reading to do. some people here aren’t so lazy as i am, but, well, i’m lazy.

anyways, on the rigging stuff, it’s always good to know how to do it, and there’s no real easy way to learn it other than just try it and do the best you can. if you really want to get someone else to do it, you might have better luck on cgtalk or something, but my experience is asking someone for freelance help like that tends to produce less than satisfactory results.

as for the sculpture itself, start working on some of the forms. think about how this thing is going to move, and build up masses to support those movements. most of the time, that will translate into anatomical structures: bones, muscles, tendons, etc. also, the wings look too flag-like. specifically, he’s got those three little banner strips, and those won’t support anything. wings function on the principle that air pushes against the taught membrane stretched across a rigid support (bones). there’s not enough surface area or tension on your model’s wing membrane to support that, especially given the generally large size of a dragon.

so, continue to bulk him up and give him some more muscle mass, especially on the claws and limbs, and extend the wings across the entire frame. you may have to change the zsphere structure to do that, however, and that will destroy any sculpting you have done on the adaptive mesh, so be prepared for that.

good luck, and good start.

Andrew, thanks for the feedback. I have started to bulk up my Dragon on Day 2. I was able to enlarge and give the wings a more concave feel with a supporting central bone in each of the 3 sections.

I wanted to use small wings, perhaps the dragon has internal “lighter than air” gases, and uses his muscles alot to fly relatively short distances ? Anyway, do you think the wings look better? usable? I can still scrap them if need be.

I know I will have to learn my rigging and skinning soon. But I have spent enough time learning Maya and really want to concentrate on seeing results, like in Zbrush :slight_smile: .

Perhaps as the project progresses I may someone who can help me with Skinning and Rigging. How long does it take to rig and skin a model like this for someone who is experienced? A day, or several?

I dont think for my first Rigging/SKinning, I would choose something with Wings, Arms and Legs, a Tail, and a long neck. It seems too complicated a starting point.

Below is Day 3 of “Anatomy of A Dreadful Beast”. I have had a couple off days in between, but belows changes are the result of a very long night into the morning. Wings are looking a bit better, and so are the hand, feet, and some other minor details.

I am still looking for someone who can Rig and Skin in Maya, to Rig my Dragon Character for flight, landing, and spewing fire. I would provide the dispalacement map prepared for mental ray in Maya. If I can’t get help there Iwill use this as a still image until I can revisit it after I learn how to do character skinning myself. I still have to figure out how to repose my work in Zbrush, I have the original Zsphere file and every other version. Hopefully I can repose this without being forced to re-scuplt the entire model ???

I hope to get some feedback, I still havent started to texture it or add fine details, I think its looking much better than what I thought was a shakey start. I am still on subdivision 6 but at about 1 million polys. I guess I have another level to play with tommorrow, plus the textures. At least I leaned to add muscles mass pretty well and got to work with making a harder object like a wing. I think there is a better way to make wings than using the zspehere maybe??

Oh and this dragon has Lighter than air gases reservers to help give lift, lightweight bones, and a jumping, springing method that propels him thru his native habitat of massively large pillars and stalagtites, in other words…Yes, I know his wings still seem inadequate and not anatomically perfect :wink: -8

The First image below is just a fast Mock up for fun. The one below that is an untextured render with the Quad Shader Material creating a neat appearance of depth texture. More to Come!

I’m sorry but I definitely have to agree about the wings. Although we live in the realm of fantasy we still have to be able to give the presence of reality and true motion.

Keep it going though :+1:

Here’s a nice sample model with great wings:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=20342&highlight=dragon
Lemo