Playing around with the pFusion

HSM Week 4

This one right here, gave me quite a bit of trouble. I'm still not wholly convinced its finished, but i like it for now. I may come back and revisit it later. These exercises are really helping in my opinion. I cant wait to accomplish the next week, IN the meantime however, I think its time to do some sketching and move on to rigging tommorow.

Flamingo

Heres a bag pipe playing flamingo.  Because alright.

Rigging.

Hey everyone.
I'm going to learn rigging. I already have a basic understanding of rigging in Modo. Enough to rig the most rudimentary characters, and objects. That being said, I know there is massive depth to it (modo) and its untold possibilities. So I am going to use this thread to document my learning process in Modo I'll also be posting this on my blog.
Before I start, I'll list the reasons i'm doing this.
-If i document my process, I find it's easier to correct future mistakes, or at least keep them from happening. Up until my knowledge of Rigging in modo becomes as such, where I wont need to refer to past documents.
-Putting it out here, will help me keep myself committed to learning this new skill set if I adhere to my once a week update on my progress.
-I will be able to share my progress with others who are much more capable than me, and they will be able to share their experience to aid me on my journey.

My goal
-To become quick enough to rig a character to the quality of the "norman" rig. In and under time constraints.
- TO be able to rig something and have it very easy and user friendly to my coworkers. Not just myself. I think thats super important and speeds up workflows when i dont have to explain what the rig does, and its super dooper clear.


I'm going to set a quality goal for my Rigs, I'd like to get the the point of Animator Steve.
http://animatorsteve.weebly.com/

And the NOrman rig
http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=9&t=91021


I'll be using this and posting exercises each week.
http://https//www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/training-videos/character-rigging-course/


If my progress on my HSM(Hard surface modeling), is any indication I think this is going to be a wild and fun ride, and I cant wait to see how it goes.

More grass and some trees

So i'm thinking my textures might be a little too low res. I need to do something about the grass, Maybe crank it up a bit. I'm going to give this one a bit of rest before I come back to it, give my eye sometime to look ast something else. 

MISC_HSM_03

So this HSM i think i'm getting better at it!. This is week 3. Feeling prety good about this piece, I wish i had more reference for it, cause i still have no clue what this joker is.
The size is all off, but again, I'm more considerend with getting topology right, and zero pinching. I want this thing more believable than I want it to be good. Took me about 3 hours, Hopefully i can get this thing down to 2. or even 1. Soon.

HSM_02

Modeling more. This pieced had, (HAS) some difficult shapes. My goal with all these exercises is to learn to think a different way than im used to. a much slower pace. while at the same time being able to model these much quicker. Its getting a lot better if i do say so myself. There are some clearly missing parts, and its not to scale, but thats not whats important to me right now at the moment. Whats important is to
A. Get it done.
B. Make it believable.
C. Make it good.

Grass Grass Grassss

  

Trying out a few things for the animation. Its pretty ok so far. I dont really have a quality bench mark, so I think i'll pull that up and try to match it. Otherwise I'm a fan of the trees and the shadows. Not so much of the grass in the ground, but I think thats mostly a color thing.
What I learned. (re learned)
>Render Passes in Modo. Thank God.
Importing a Modo scene, is preferable when i'm trying to instance a mesh, (The tree).
> Spread angle determines the softness of a shadow. (I think thats only with the directional light)
>(For future reference) use these L system, to build the tree.

HSM_01

HSM_week_02

In my off time while I'm doing these projects. I'm reallly enjoying it so far. MOdeling these without the aid of Either Dynamesh and, or Mesh fusion really requires me to adapt a different mind set. My thoughts have to become much more meticulous and over all much slower and more thoughtful.