Timelapse footage, OnePlus 3T

I shot some extra timelapse footage at the weekend...to keep things simple, and rather than trying to film snow laden trees, my idea is to use this shot as the background for when my character has a sense of shift and turns to face the light...
I'll recreate the snowy mound in Zbrush and Maya and then light it to match the real thing...
                             

Foot roll attributes in Maya

                      

Setting the attributes for foot roll, toe tap, toe twist, heel twist in Maya

I'm using Sean's great handouts to follow the steps on how to create IK controllers for the legs and feet, plus I've just managed to make the foot roll!

Now I've done some simple tests of the ice men melting, and I've realised that they can't melt too quickly, it may be best to show some melting and then cut away to a close up reaction of the woman; and then cut back to various shots of different parts of the ice figures melting.

I think the rig will come in useful for various poses...

Toe Tap

Toe Twist

Heel Twist

Maya rigging: creating heel locators

Creating heel locators....

Maya Outliner and Rigging

I've begun to try out some deformation tests using the lattice. However, I still want the option of using a rig, particularly on the arms, and to create a good sitting position.

I'm going to use the actual controllers that we created in Sang's class over the past two weeks and, thought this would be a good opportunity to practice rigging.

The image below has taken just over an hour...

Onwards...

Lattice Deformers and Image Planes

"Keep it simple. Cheat like mad"

So today I'm going to create four different ice men. Starting with the same T pose geometry, each one will be deformed using a 'Lattice Deformer' (green grid below), the vertices of which I will select in component mode and keyframe. I'm using the photoshop image that I created for my animatic, as an image plane for reference.

Here goes!

Facial Rigging in Maya

Facial rigging:

Create new eye joint, from existing head joint. Create 'locator' inside of eye ball geometry and 'contstrain point' Maintain Offset 'OFF'.

Parent constraint the eye joint to the eye geometry.

Do not 'parent' in the outliner, as the hierachy will become complicated and messy. In the outliner, keep all geometry together and all joints together.

Create an eye controller (mask shape with circular eye holes) using Nurbs cuves, in component mode and scaled/stretched to created shape.

Modify centre pivot and snap to centre of eyeball: then move in the Z axis away from the geometry. Clear history and freeze transformations, once the controller is in the final place.

Create tongue joints, 1,2,3, and 4. Parent constraint.

Parent constraint to the root

Create head controller using nurbs curves. Start with a polygon primitive pyramid. Turn off wire frame mode and select CV curve tool, 1 point linear. Snap curve to each point on pyramid; it's fine to duplicate lines. Once complete, rename nurbs curve in outliner and then delete pyramid. Centre pivot and snap to head_bn joint.

Delete history and freeze transformations.

Contstrain orient and maintain offset 'ON'

Repeat for jaw controller, root, spine, chest, neck and global controller.

Parent controllers in outliner, choosing the 'child' first, then CTRL and select the parent. Press 'P'

To bind:

In outliner, show only joints (*bn)

Select all joints, then select geometry.

Skin bind.

Skin weights next!