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Though it best to push my updates here on my work in Bforartists with my character Trinny – instead of the gallery.
I will animate him ultimately – right now rigging him for UE4.
First things first is to create the deformer rig. After that I’ll then start the relationship between the controlers, internal bone deformers and the system to make a really dynamic cartoon head that can deform hard. With this layered bone deformation system with sub-controllers, I can have general deformations with Squash and Stretch, then have lattice like control over the skin to preserve the general deformations and keep the small minute deformations. Also, no need for shapes – as they can be built with posing on the fly.
So here is an example of how I would make my eyeball squash and stretch, and still be able to look around. I have a parent bone, a cross hatch deformers with constraint offset influences to an IK look at bone, then a simple scale bone for the pupil. I might also throw in some cross hatch deformer offset controls for some extra eyeball stretching around. This rig I’ve already tested for UE4 from Blender/Bforartists, so it should work on this one (with minor improvements). They eyeball goes a little elastic, and deformed.. but that’s the point no?!
I’m building a system that uses null controllers and stretched grid like bones arranged around deformer loops. My plan is to get exclusive bone deformations that are flexible enough to not need morph targets nor shapes – just poses. The reason I’m doing this is because I need the rig to be mostly morph free so I can then add realtime fur (that doesn’t evaluate on morphs). Also – the rig will run faster with fewer drivers. Also.. I can technically build lattice like deformations that can export to a game engine (when lattices can’t transfer between software).
These are just the beginning.
After I do this. I will then build the control rig, then tag the controller to the shadow rig (or deform rig).
I have a script for that already. Progress!
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UE4 has a 150 bone limit. This rig will only have a deformer shadow rig that exports after animation. All these bones don’t export. The majority are drivers and controls. You can see everything as I build but the ultimate export of the deformer shadow rig and the animation controls will be quite minimal (with a lot of function).
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Hey there.. if this works.. should we make this guy into a mascot for BFA? I mean he’s a mascot for my “studio” but..I want to make the studio an official sponsor. It would be cool to have the mascot support BFA. What do you think?
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Hm, difficult.
The character itself is nice. But not textured from what i can see, besides the eyes. It has also a very complicated rig. On the contrary, the mesh itself is rather simple. It’s imho no good example material. And to be brutally honest, in my opinion it’s not cute enough for a mascot.
But do we really need a mascot?
It will be furry a bit like a muppet, rendered in Unreal Engine (thus the need for the complicated rig). The idea is to use it in publicity, not example material. Albeit, he doesn’t have any final texture/colour yet.
Concerning cuteness, the target audience would be in their mid 20’s to late 30’s with some in their late teens – we did have him with huuuge head and eyes and tiny body, but opted for a more adult look to create more empathy to that target audience. You think a more childlike kuwai proportions would be better for that audience? Currently our demographic is mid 20’s to mid 30’s male dominant, according to FB. We also opted to simple form with few or no features for a more “empathetic” approach to the audience – so stories are easier to illustrate and to have people identify with the character emotionally by emotional projection. It’s harder on a more defined character (that’s why villians have strong unique features). It’s very typical in Anime and hero character design also in the west.
Mascot is not necessary, but it’s arty, artistic, user friendly. Like Krita and their mascot – or Firefox with their fan mascots, or even Android.
How would you like a Bforartists mascot? Maybe I can get my artist to propose some new concepts and we can target to render him out with Cycles instead, or Eevee when it comes out. Could be another thread.
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A mascot is not really essential I believe and the time might be better invested elsewhere, BUT, if you would record the whole process from design over modeling, texturing, rigging and animation and do some short clips to create a small tutorial series on that topic, that would definetely be worth it and create some more awareness for BfA. – I would go with cycles / eevee for the rendering though, to actually showcase the capabilities of the software the mascot should be promoting.
It sounds like a fun plan.
How would you like a Bforartists mascot?
Difficult. I have no idea to be honest. All i can say is hat this character did not make click to me, sorry
Sure, that would be good. I generally hate all raytracing unbiased or biased solutions due to the huge wait and massive hardware requirements to produce animations and do artistic tweaks, but I can do it.
I’ll talk with my artist later this week and draw up some proposals and start a thread. I have this guy recorded mostly, but not with much intent.
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What about a snail? We had it twice in the splash screens already. And the one from the second image isn’t that bad made. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea. A snail isn’t exactly cuddly
I would have a old horse mesh around. Maybe a unicorn would do the trick. Needs better texturing though. And the proportions are too realistic. A rigged goat is also around here. Or a wasp, or a spider or an orc. It’s all pre PBR and pre sculpting material though. So it would most probably all need a big overhaul.
We can all make those things look cute and empathetic. I’ll relay that to my artist once he comes to the microstudio. First things first we’ll get some good silluettes, record the process of character conceptualization, then start conceptualizing a myriad of proposals.
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If it is intended as a mascot to represent BfA, and the character should maybe explain things in the tutorial videos or appear next to the “tip of the day”, the question should be what that character is there to communicate? – A snail is slow and slimy to me, no matter how cute it is drawn.^^ … And for the sake of the tutorial series I beleive a humanoid character would be best, since this is the most general thing users would like to create. – I think something like the Trinny character would work if you indeed put some light blue muppet fur on it and maybe a BfA logo in its chest. – Only it should be created entirely in BfA to represent the software as a complete 3d suite.
Question is still if we need a own mascot at all.
Making Human characters is still pretty advanced and one of the most complicated things. Dunno if this fits into our tutorial series. They cover the basics.
We don’t neeeeeed a mascot. It just is useful for publicity I can do for BFA and we can get a bunch of artistic tutorial materials official BFA.. and it will be arty like “Be for artists”. This type of work is not hard for me and the people I work with. We aren’t developing much so keeping the audience captive is now hard due to the development delays and not much to publish. Just thought it could be a good idea to keep the audience awake for potential moral support and development recruitment in the future.
But indeed it is not necessary.
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