Dragon thread

[Earl]

I know what you mean Stu...I never did get a good transition from the body to arms on that 2-year old prototype I posted. It's tough...and there's so many details that can be added...a creature like this could easily go into the many thousands of points/polygons - even using subdivision surfaces.

[s.winders]

Heres an arm I made today.I decided to make it more humanoid to make the muscalature look more realistic,it still needs a few tweaks but I think I have the shape pretty accurate now. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]


Stu.

[s.winders]

This time adding the image might be a good idea.

[Earl]

Ahhh.....that arm looks very promising. It's kinda hard to tell without the hand/claw attached, and without seeing it attached to the body...but the shaping is looking mighty fine.

[s.winders]

Cheers Earl.


I have since remade that arm because I forgot to allow for the outer angle of the forearm as it exits the bicep area,and I forgot to add a bit of rotation to the biceps and as the modelling ws all one piece I just had to chuck it.

I cant decide whether I would get a better result making arm veins from a bump map or making them with splines,what do you think?


Also is it possible to join to separate pieces by using a bone,I know you are unfamiliar with Cinema but I would assume the explanation would be similar for Lightwave and Cinema if I am right


The only explanations I can find for bones in the manual or on the web might as well be {to me} 101 ways to drink Peruvian bats blood from a furry slipper [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] I just dont get it.


Cheers.

Stu.

[Earl]

Hmmm...that's a good question. And ultimately, I don't have the answer (to the veins). You've gotta decide how much detail you want, and how close you're going to be showing this dragon to others. Bump maps can be ideal for veins! They're fast, and with a little artistic touch in a painting program, they can look very convincing. However, there are plenty of times on any creature, where the veins actually protrude the skin in a physical bump, which I'm sure you were referring to when you mentioned modeling them with a spline. If they are a physical bump under the skin, it would be *ideal* to model the veins INTO the arm, with the same object. That way the veins are physically attached to the arms, and they appear to be 100% beneath the skin. It would give you the most photorealistic look possible - and if textured well from there, it could be absolutely realistic. Ultimately, that would be the best approach. But depending on your modeling method, it can be pretty difficult. I'm pretty sure you said you were using SubDivision Surfaces, correct? If this is the case, this is probably the easist type of surface to add flowing, organic veins to the arm. You'll just need to subdivide that area of the arm and spend a couple of hours molding the vein manually....it will take a lot of time and patience I'm afraid. A LOT. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img] Honestly, I'd try just using a bump map first. Unless you're going to show the dragon's arm up close and personal, a bump map will look nearly as good from far away (pretty much the same). And that's much easier to make and deal with. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Now...to the second topic. Again, each program handles things differently, but from all the programs I've used, this is fairly general. In general bones are NOT actually a part of the object...in the sense that, they aren't made of polygons and points like the object is. Bones are tools which you setup within the object (they usually represent them with triangles or other simple shape) which are used to guide, mold, mutate, and manipulate the original object. In answer of your question, bones do not join seperate pieces of objects together...at least, not in my experience. They are completely seperate from the modeling process (in effect anyway). There should be a fairly painless way to join your pieces together though, especially if you use Sub-d surfaces. In LightWave, I generally plan on a common polygon of common number of sides as the 'join' polygon. Then I line that polygon up with the matching polygon of the other piece up, then weld them together (then delete out the single polygon, as it's now squished between the two objects now one). That's the basic procedure that I use anyway...it could very well be different in Cinema.

Do we have any Cinema experts out here who would help out on the details to this?

Good luck Stu! Keep us posted.

[Erik Heyninck]

You probably know this, but still: In the Bodypaint Tutorial Manual, page91, Chapter10: Painting Veins, they explain how to paint veins, even with bumps.

Hope this helps.

By the way: in a few weeks, I'll join is as I just bought the Art Suite from Maxon. No animation, I agree, but every march of a million miles begins with a first step.
These will be long weeks...

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_razz.gif[/img]

[s.winders]

Thanks for that explanation Earl [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


So a bone with I assume knife cuts is actually able to distort from say a square primitive to like a bent knee joint? Ok I thought this process would just tear the mesh all over the joint.


I do know how to join to objects together I was just holding off doing so until I know more about boning in Cinema so that I dont screw it up [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ,but thanks for the info I am starting to get my head around it better,I just assumed that a bone joined two objects and connected it and alowed rotation etc,but I see now that you can do that within an object by placing a bone and it deforms into a joint accordingly.

Erik I didnt even know there was a part on veins in the tutorials thanks for that also.

I have made some veins I used splines to get a good circumference but I might combine splines with a bump map.I tried a bump map previously and I couldnt position it the way I wanted and I had to try to position a bump map set to spherical within the material which {I found} next to impossible.I am going to make the Dragn very muscular so I think that calls for vascularity like say a bodybuilder would have,I also have decided to use a more humanoid type body ie recognizable chest ribcage etc to keep within the confines of reality.The back is going to be tricky because anything as large as a Dragon that could fly will have to have huge latissimus muscles in the back and a lot of definition also and I think that will be the most tricky part as well as making wings that look like the actually fold up.With bones would it be possible to have material between the wings fold up in a concertena {excuse the spelling} type of way,or would that be way to hard to do?

Thanks [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Stu.

[Erik Heyninck]

And don't forget the breast bone and the pectoralis muscles. (the whithe meat in chicken).

In all that flies, except aeroplanes and angels, these are overdeveloped. The movement to counteract gravity is by bringing the wings down, this is towards the front of the chest, and this is mainly done by the pectoralis. Birds have a breastbone with a protruding wig in the middle to which the mucsles adheres at both sides.

Hope this helps.

If you don't work against time, time often works for you.

[Earl]

Well Stu, that depends. I built the wings out of one solid sub-d object, which makes using bones to control it much easier (see the image I posted, which is just a cropped view of my old dragon's wing). If you take this approach, and mold the actual dragon's wing bones (not the 3d control bones) to the wings themselves, then the skin in between will really fold well. You may have to create 3d control bones that match the dragon's actual bones, then perhaps put 3d control bones inbetween, where you want the folds to go. You can use those "bones" to control where the folds go. The folds are not usually automatic. Generally it won't fold at all without some sort of control bones used to control the fold (as I tried to describe up there). All these bone terms are getting confusing...having bones modeled for the dragon, and having 3d program 'bones' used to animate and manipulate the dragon....heh. If this is really confusing, let me know and I'll try to re-word it.