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• 3D Modeling Techniques > Chinese Dragons-Character Design Tutorial (Posted By: cgking)
• :: Post Date: 2007-04-02 19:07:57 [Post Comment] [Post Articles]

• Chinese Dragons - Character Design Tutorial Software: Any 3D Applications Author: Unknown PRELIMINARY DESIGN AND STORYBOARD To design a good character animation, an artist must have a good understanding of the composition of the work, and a strong ability to perceive. Basically, any object can be broken down into squares, circles, and triangles: Before starting to design any character (or indeed any object), you should break it down into these shapes, and be sure of their proportions. The triangle is the most recognized shape for character drawing, and is usually the shape I first consider when I start to compose a character. Your grasp of proportions determines whether a character looks good or bad, and even determines the style (or mood) of the character. It's crucial to get these proportions right before you start to fill in the details. After you′ve blocked in a character, it′s best to go outside and get some fresh air. It′s surprising what will reveal itself to you when you look at a drawing again with fresh eyes! I cannot stress how important it is to start your project by observing shapes effectively. A good way to start developing this skill is to look at the work of master artists. You will quickly find that they create their shapes by first focusing on outlines. Furthermore, they work on getting the best shapes by also examining and creating tempo, proportion, and contrast. You will quickly notice that they may omit and modify some areas just to keep the overall tempo. I'll illustrate with a famous painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (Nymphs and Satyr, 1873). In the painting, Bouguereau emphasizes certain structures and outlines to give the entire painting more impact and tempo. In his shape analysis, Bouguereau first ignored shading and small details, instead treating the objects as if they were purely flat cutouts. If he had left all the cutout outlines at the same intensity and color, they would look too forced. So Bouguereau blurred the cutouts by shading in some parts and blending away the harsh edges so that they are less visible to the eye. The end result? A balanced, beautiful image. By using this same type of analysis, you can also design better shapes. I′ll illustrate further with some designs I sketched out for a dragon animation. For these designs, I researched a lot of dragon imagery to find the look I wanted. There are many kinds of Chinese dragons. In the end I chose a creature called "Qiu," a dragon with two horns similar to dragon imagery found in the West. I conducted some analysis on the details. This is a very helpful technique to verify the model and facial expression you′ll need later on. Finally, I drew a detailed sketch of the face to understand the texture up front, to avoid going back and forth fruitlessly later on in production. Usually I create another color sketch after I finish a design, but this animation was an exception because I already knew what I needed to do. But, in teamwork everyone must understand every aspect of a design, so lots of color sketches are always crucial. Often the storyboard and the character designs are done in parallel. Many animators overlook the storyboard, or draw it out very roughly. This is not good practice: a good storyboard is crucial for the best production values, and the minimum production costs. For example, a good movie will be exciting already at its storyboard stage. The storyboard also helps you consider the movement of the camera, the relationship between foreground and background, the motion of the characters, the timing, and the overall performance. To get it right, you should even consider drawing a color storyboard. MODELING I do not have much to say about modeling, because it is entirely based on an individual′s ability to conceive designs and to grasp the structure and beauty of shapes. In other words, it takes lots of practice! I would like to mention one tool often neglected by animators: the top view. The top view is important to check if your model has depth, and is key to avoid that flat face so often created by inexperienced modelers. Also, good models must have their lines laid out following the direction of the bones. Although it can be difficult considering bones at the same time as sculpting a shape, this technique will always pay off at the setup and binding steps. No matter how complicated a model might be, this principle cannot be ignored. Oftentimes I see models on the Web where the shapes are done well, but the lines are laid out very badly, resulting in poor animations. For complicated models with a lot of repetition, you will need a tool to process your work in batches, and Maya MEL code gives you this option. I use the following little script as a wrapper to iterate through a list of objects: string $ls[]=`ls -sl -fl`; for (int $i=0; $i < size($ls); $i++) { ........................ } This wrapper can be included in many MEL scripts. For example, there are thousands of scales on my dragons. To adjust them one by one would not be possible, so I wrote the following script to adjust the scales: global proc noisejobwin() { if (`window -ex noiseobj`) deleteUI noiseobj; window -rtf 1 noiseobj; columnLayout -adj 1; floatFieldGrp -l "tranlate offset" tranlateoffset; floatFieldGrp -l "rotate offset" rotateoffset; button -l "creat" -c noisejobfunc creatnoisebutton; showWindow noiseobj; } global proc noisejobwin() { if (window -ex noiseobj′) deleteUI noiseobj; window -rtf 1 noiseobj; columnLayout -adj 1; floatFieldGrp -l "translate offset" translateoffset; floatFieldGrp -l "rotate offset" rotateoffset; button -l "create" -c noisejobfunc creatnoisebutton; showWindow noiseobj; } global proc noisejobfunc() { string $ls[]=`ls -sl -fl`; for (int $i=0;$i < size($ls);$i++) { select -r $ls[$i]; float $v1;float $v2; $v1=′floatFieldGrp -q -v translateoffset′; $v2=′floatFieldGrp -q -v rotateoffset′; float $rand1=rand(-$v1,$v1); float $rand2=rand(-$v2,$v2); move -r $rand1 $rand1 $rand1; rotate -r -os $rand2 $rand2 $rand2; select -cl; } } Here′s another little script. I used to have trouble locating the exact position of selected objects, which meant that I had a hard time parenting other objects to them. Then I discovered this script that moves a simple air field locator to the selected object: string $ls[]=`ls -sl -fl`; for (int $i=0;$i < size($ls);$i++) { float $xform[]=′xform -q -ws -t $ls[$i] ?59; air ; move -r $xform[0] $xform[1] $xform[2]; } In this script, the air locator is moved to the position of each selected object. You can then use this locator to parent other objects to the selected object. ANIMATING Maya's animating tools let you achieve almost any effect you want. I used other CG software in the past, but their animating tools were never complete so I always had to scramble to complete a task. I even had to stick plastic transparencies to my computer monitor to compare my 2D drawings with the bones I was trying to set out! This troublesome workflow is history now that I have Maya. Ghosting, for example, is an excellent tool to give me a clear picture of what I am doing. Here I will use ghost images to show how to animate a wave. In this image the red up arrows show the crest of the wave, and the down arrows show the trough of the wave. This wave action represents how a motion or force will travel. Furthermore, a moving character will often mimic this wave motion. Getting the tempo of this wave motion just right is the true test of the artist's discipline. Consider a character throwing a ball. When a person is preparing to throw a ball, the waist must be exerting force backwards. This force then travels up the spine as the ball is thrown. Meanwhile the force at the waist gradually decreases as the force travels away, until the next time when the waist exerts force anew for another throw. Looking at the following picture, you can see how this action can be compared to a wave: Animators like to use IK, but many don't realize how important it is to create this wave-like motion from one frame to the next. And this motion applies not only to body animation, but can be extended to facial expressions as well. Techniques like turning Maya's ghosting on really help to see this flow and get it correct. TEXTURING Drawing a surface requires patience. In this section I will explain a few small techniques I've used to make surfaces more realistic. When drawing a bump map, you should draw not only the "craters" (those areas on the bump maps that are recessed), but also the corresponding "bumps." Both are necessary to create a realistic look. In the above examples of bump maps and resulting images, the craters look too uniform, lacking the wear and tear seen in real objects. Add highlights for a more natural look: The following bitmaps are used in a texture I applied to a dragon used in my animation. Although a texture may seem weak when you first apply it, it can create an entire effect once the model is lit. Moving on to lighting, I want to mention another tip. Let's start with a portrait I painted: On the second copy of the portrait, I've circled areas that are grayer. By making some colors grayer, you can bring out other colors more, resulting in a more vibrant portrait overall. You can also use this same type of contrast for textures. Another tip for faces: place some lights to add a more complex colored effect. These lights should be in colors opposite of the color of skin on the color spectrum. That is, if the skin has a reddish tinge, use "cold" (blue or green) lights to filter out the excess red and to highlight the colors of the blood vessels. I did not use complex textures and models for the images above, choosing instead to use spheres so that you could see the basic lighting principle at play. If possible, you should collect the light and color information projected onto the object into a separate layer, so that you can compare the colors later on by hiding and showing layers. Files download Dragon scene files: Both files are in Maya 6 PLE format. Red dragon [13.2MB] Blue dragon [21.8MB]

• Comments: (Currently there are 16 comments.)
• 
• • [Anonymous]kot ( 2009-05-25 15:38:51 ) [Post Comments]

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  • [Anonymous]prashant.karule ( 2009-05-24 19:46:51 ) [Post Comments]

  • I have not any word, good

  • [Anonymous]mahesh ( 2009-01-10 15:40:01 ) [Post Comments]

  • mahedsh dansdge

  • [Anonymous] ( 2008-06-09 07:33:52 ) [Post Comments]

  • crack maya . u r doing Autodesk a favor learning how to use their and keeping it an industry standard. they make money off companies and schools. not the poor artist that are just beging

  • [Anonymous] ( 2007-10-24 05:26:56 ) [Post Comments]

  • I want Maya model!!!Don't the Maya 6 PLE format!!!

  • [Anonymous] ( 2007-10-24 02:10:34 ) [Post Comments]

  • Thank you very much.

  • [Anonymous]prakash ( 2007-07-29 19:00:33 ) [Post Comments]

  • thank you. this tutorials is very helpful for us.

  • [Anonymous]KGMK ( 2007-07-28 13:44:46 ) [Post Comments]

  • Fantastic Photoes

  • [Anonymous]Mukul ( 2007-05-12 05:37:29 ) [Post Comments]

  • Fantastic tut!. I'm just learning the basics and I found this really useful!

  • [Anonymous]janakac2@gmail.com ( 2007-04-27 20:12:04 ) [Post Comments]

  • maya 2

  • [Anonymous]janakc2 ( 2007-04-27 20:11:03 ) [Post Comments]

  • maya

  • [Anonymous]janakac2@gmail.com ( 2007-04-25 21:01:13 ) [Post Comments]

  • janaka

  • [Anonymous]janakac2@gmail.com ( 2007-04-25 21:00:40 ) [Post Comments]

  • janaka

  • [Anonymous]Mr X ( 2007-04-23 11:20:34 ) [Post Comments]

  • Nyampah Chiii..... Nakleng....

  • [Anonymous]SJCC ( 2007-04-23 11:19:20 ) [Post Comments]

  • Tai Chi.... Kleng..... How did you do that?? Suck.... Go To Hell !!!!!!!

  • [Anonymous]mango shake ( 2007-04-03 16:37:52 ) [Post Comments]

  • who is the author of this article? i would love to see some more of his paintings! please post a name or even better a link to his/her work..

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