Baby also coloured

This is a slightly smaller video size. The baby is also coloured. I had a little trouble at first colouring him cos it undid all my rigging, but I tried again and it worked the second time. No idea why...

Unluckyman Coloured

Coloured version or previous video. Look he has a bow tie now as well

Child Rigged...

An example of the child I have rigged, again, before and after the rigging is complete. The main problem on this character where his feet, but with the new method of rigging, this was easily solved...

Rigging hands...

An example of a before and after shot of the hand on my Happyman. As you can see, it looks a bit messed up before I rig it properly.

Successful rigging

tadaa! My first sucessfully rendered character. Much easier this new way.

I am having sooo many difficulties rigging my characters. It is slowing my 3ds Max down so much, and I believe my files may be corrupted. That is, until, I figured out where I was going wrong.

Instead of using Nurms to smooth my model, it works better to use a turbosmooth after I have rigged my model. This way, the physique works better with less polygons, then the smooth is applied after. As you can see on the top picture (middle and right), this makes a much smoother version than the one on the top right, which is terribly creased.

Barriers

Here is a quick render I did of the barriers for the entry into the Dome. I just wanted to check that barriers could raise and fall smoothly without juttering to the side or anything. I think it looks good. Moving on!

Props are almost all completed. You may notice I'm taking a quick break from rigging, it's not working well at all

Still rigging

I'm still working on the rigging of my characters. I am also getting a week placement at Th1ng productions in London, which is exciting.
At the moment I have Unluckyman and the baby almost rigged. I am also working on the young child.
I had issues with the physique modifier at first, but I am working with fixing it.

I have begun the complicated process of rigging my characters, starting with unluckyman. This may take me a while to sort out. Although maybe not as long. I have been informed that because the character fits neatly over the biped, the actual rigging is straightforward and most happens automatically. There are just a few bits here and there that need tweaking. The main items being the hand. Because the fingers are so close together, the points are pulling on all the wrong bits. So I need to manually select which vertexes are attached to which links. As I am rigging these hands, I am noticing that my hands don't look very handlike. They lack knuckles and the palm doesn't look realistic enough. I need to ask myself, are these changes going to be worth the difficulty of changing them? How important are the characters hands in my animation. Probably very important, so maybe altering their shape is a necessity. I just wish I didn't use the same shape of hand for all my characters now...

A couple more additions to my list of props. Above is a buzzsaw I made that Unluckyman will accidently create. To it's right is the reference I got for its creation. Also, I have begun work on the huge orb that generates everyones imagination. I have gone for a hi tech looking machine with a central globe in the centre and multiple wires extruding from it and connecting it to the ceiling (see below)

Balloon

Now I have made a balloon, I just need to work out details, such as how to make the string and how to make it shine like a balloon. But, the basic shape is complete. Including knot (Shown above)

I makes cakes!

Yum Yum Yum!


Obviously it needs colouring, but I'll get to that. This is the cake that Happyman summons up. Candles were important, and were made using the array tool. I want them to appear above the cake and fall into the icing one at a time.

More random objects I am making!

I am forever ongoing with objects, starting more and more as I come to a standstill with others. Although I have a whole bunch of objects almost finished, there are a few that need finishing that I have no idea how to do.

For example, I need to make a spring stretch out from the fuses of the dynamite and into the clock, but I am unsure how to mould the spring shape into the shape I want. Many other objects needs texturing done which I have yet to learn how to do. All in good time.

Here are the latest of objects I have almost finished:

Jack in the Box.

Lollipop

Candy Cane

Fishing Net

Broom