Bird Number One WIP 7

Well, I am happy to say that the first phase of modeling on the bird is complete. All of the basic shapes are in place, and in a good relationship to each other. Next is to refine these basic shapes, and add details such as seams and bolts.

I had to redesign the legs and feet so that they would be able to grasp things, as well as function on uneven surfaces. To do this I used a skeleton from a raven (Don't worry, a picture). I chose a raven, because I had a run in with one Thursday afternoon on my way through a small park in San Francisco's Financial District. He was huge, and totally un-phased by humans!

The raven run-in led me to Google ravens once I was in front of the computer. After reading a few articles and seeing some cool video, I was sold. I plan to use raven footage for reference once I get into rigging and animation.


You may also notice that the beak has been redesigned. After modifying the original design so heavily, it just didn't work to hang on to the original beak. This one too is (loosely) based on a raven's beak.

Comparing this to the original artwork is a real shocker. Nigel came through for us with a cool drawing - And I will admit this is not exactly the same bird. Many aspects of the design had to be modified to allow for certain types of motion to even be possible. As one element was changed, others followed to compensate - In an attempt to keep the look interesting. In the end I think this design is also successful - And I have tried to pull inspiration from Nigel's work.

Before I continue to develop this model, I will be taking some time to clean up my file. Things can get quite messy with this many individual pieces.. And so I want to make sure my Naming, Groupings, Pivots, and UVs are making sense before continuing on.

As a result I may not have anything to look at for a while. But have no fear - I will be working hard - and will post some new pics when I can.

My UV Layout Post

So, James has been ruling the roost (pun completely intended) here with all of his awesome bird posts and I've been largely silent lately. Mostly I've not been able to work on the project as much as I'd like and also I've been doing the utterly unglamorous job of laying out UV's on the three buildings.

But it is time for me to post again. Here are some pictures of UV's.

The base building UV's.

The top railing. This could easily be a part of the main building but as birds are known for hanging out at the top of buildings, this seemed like a place for its own texture.

The pipes & lantern. The lantern is very low-rez at the moment and if it has any prominence in our shots will surely be art directed with more care than its gotten so far. This works for now though.

The first pic shows building two with a UV layout texture applied to it. The texture is hella ugly by most standards, but it's designed to make laying out UV's easier. The grid pattern & color cycle work as a visual guide, showing you how your UV's look on the model, where there's stretching, relative scale, etc.

I've broken this building up into 6 texture groups. One texture for the main building, one for the three lower doors & steps, one for the top railing, one for the windows, one for the pipes & lantern and one for the signs. This texture assignment is somewhat arbitrary as our shots aren't blocked out yet. I wouldn't be surprised if, on a shot-by-shot basis, the texture sizes & assignments change pretty dramatically. For background shots, for example, this whole building could be taken care of with one camera projection. On a close-up, any one door or window might actually need multiple textures.

I only screengrabbed pics of three textures but they're all there, on all three buildings. Laying all of these out like this was pretty tedious but it gives us the flexibility we'll need later on.

Cheers.

Bird Number One WIP 6

I have finished the wing modifications - Now the wing has mechanisms to control all of different movements it will need. Also I have started on the upper thighs - refining their general shape and tying them into the sub frame of the bird.

Next is to add the lower legs and then adjust the tail feathers as they meet the sub frame of this creature. I have included renders without the wings or body plates to show some of the underlying structure.

As the bird will be in flight, it is important that it be able to withstand scrutiny from many angles.

I do want to refine the head - Especially the eyes, but that can be addressed in the next stage of tweaking and refinement.

Almost done with this phase of modeling!

Bird Number One WIP 5

This post is just for fun. I decided to render a couple frames with Occlusion instead of just doing screen grabs. It a great way for me to see just how much (or how little) detail is needed in certain areas.




As you can see I am a little further along with the wings, and the shoulder integration is in a good place. The last thing I need to do (at this level of detail) to the wings is to add a small indentation for the tabs on the wing sections so they can slot into each other when the wing folds.

Then its onto the legs. They will need some additional development & design.

After that I have a boiler to add into body of the bird, and some details to work out regarding how the tail section is structured. I have built a sub frame through much of the birds extremities to help with this, but I have not finalized certain aspects of how the tail integrates into this frame. Also I would like to add some tiny actuators for the top two tail pieces.

After that I will give a good once over to model - and maybe revisit the eyes. Then I should be finished with this stage of modeling.

I may begin to layout some of the UVs before continuing to model - As I may be jumping into Mudbox to add a bit more of an organic line to the design overall. (Yet to be decided.)

In the following stage I will be refining the profiles of each shape, as well as adding all of the nuts, screws, washers, seams, etc that make something like this really fun to work on. I got the idea today to add some sludge around some of the moving parts - Fun!

I feel like I am past the most challenging parts of modeling this creature - Now that the design is in a good place it has started to flow.

Bird Number One WIP 4

Well I finally have a general profile and set of proportions for this bird that I am happy with. As you can see I still have a lot to do, but I think the main structures are in place. Next I will work on tying in the shoulder to the first wing section and then move down to the legs, which need some additional structures to allow for greater articulation.

Bird Number One WIP *Design Changes

After a good deal of deliberation and discussions all around, here are the re-designed wings for our bird friend courtesy of Nigel Sussman:
As you can see they are greatly modified functionally and structurally. I will be working on these this weekend, and will provide posts once I have made some headway.

It is too bad to have to lose the work (rigging-wise) that was already put into the previous wing design, but it was helpful in exposing some limitations in that design, for our purposes.

As is the case with all of the concept art, this is not set in stone but rather a guide, many finer details will be finalized during the modeling process itself. That being said - This design will serve as the structural and artistic basis of what will be (I hope) the final wing design.

Bird Number One WIP 3

Here are some screen grabs of the progress today. I was able to add most of the broad facial details in as well as (very) basic wings and a tail section. The tail and wings will be refined a great deal - But I needed something simple to get things started.

I modified some things in the model to make him feel a little more aggressive especially around the beak, which is larger than in the original art. Also I decided against the small metal supports on the sides of the mouth, as I want this guy to look like he could really open wide and BITE!

The wings were today's real head scratcher.

As I had mentioned in a previous post - Since this creature is metal - I cant have any pieces interpenetrating - And with the complexity of the wings , that was one tall order.

I didn't have a drawing of this in any type of bind pose, so I was having a hard time understanding how the wings would move as they were folded and unfolded.

I opted to create the scissor frame at a fairly high level of detail and then rig it. By doing this I can test the wings as they open and close, and by rigging a more detailed piece, I wont have to do it all over again later. (no user friendly controls or anything for now - Just basic parenting)

The scissor action on the wings is really creepy..! But I think I will need some additional support structures for them so that they seem strong enough to support the bird in flight.

I then keyframed the wing unfolding so I can check it through its range of motion while I refine the structure of the wing panels.

Once I had this set up I noticed that I will need to do some extensive re-working of some elements of the design - especially with these wings. Stay tuned.