Starting the Rig

Having fine-tuned the model the tiger is now ready for rigging. I've decided to used a mesh which is double the resolution of the base mesh I initially modelled in order to give a higher level of control over the deformations.

I've spent a long time poring over videos on the internet of tigers moving in various ways. One of the biggest challenges, it seems, is getting the tiger's unique front leg and clavicle movement right. What I've found from the videos is that the clavicle is always more or less pointing towards the paw. This is an effect I thought could be achieved by somehow utilising an aim constraint which dictated the rotation of the clavicle as pointing toward the paw.

I decided to test this out and came up with this:

I think with a little fiddling about and maybe adding a physical clavicle bone mesh into the muscle system it'll work pretty well.

Having done that I've made most of the rest of the skeleton:

Now I'm moving on to the facial rigging which I think is going to be a big challenge to get right. I think I'll probably do the whole face using joints as these give a more organic, non-linear feel than blend shapes.

More soon.

It's Been a While

I haven't updated in a good 2 weeks so I thought it would be a good idea to do so while I remember to. The lack of updates doesn't mean I've not been doing anything: quite the opposite! I've been basically working non-stop on all my projects and just haven't found the right chances to update anything.

The main thing in the past 2 weeks has been modelling the tiger. It's taken a fair bit longer than on other models purely because I was it to be at a high enough standard to sit in along side live-action footage. This means I need to get the everything spot on and to do that I've been scouring the internet for as much reference material as I can find to get it right.

Having found enough reference material to begin, I started drawing out a concept image and the front and side profiles to start modelling from:

At the moment the base model is complete, including the inside of the mouth (teeth, tongue, jaw, etc.) and I've taken it into Mudbox to sculpt the muscles in and tweak and correct certain details.

Here are the base models for the tiger, its jaw, teeth and tongue:

Having finished this stage I cut out UVs for the model in Roadkill:

The next stage is doing the finer details in Mudbox, which is where I'm at now. Here's the state of the model thus far:

I've trying to think of a way of getting a good-looking furry effect without relying too much on Maya fur at render time. So far I've used a stencil in Mudbox to sculpt a furry effect onto the model. It works alright but I did it very quickly and won't be settling for it the way it looks now.

That's everything. I'll probably start rigging it very soon as the texturing can wait until last really.

Clarity

I have been asked by my tutors exactly what I expect to have for this project by the deadline. Obviously, concepting, modelling, texturing, and rigging a realistic tiger along with all the muscle systems, weights and bones and then animating it in a match-moved film with dynamic fur, realistic lighting and a ton of post-production is probably a little too much to expect from one person in one semester especially considering all the other projects I have on the go. All along I intended for this film to be my main project for the whole year but perhaps I haven't made that completely clear and, thus, look like a crazy masochist with a wish for suicide by exhaustion.

Let me dispel that idea and reassure anyone reading this that I'm not completely mental and will only be doing half-ish of that colossal pile of work. By the end of this semester, I aim to have an intuitive and detailed rig of a realistic, anatomically correct tiger along with some realistic animations; run cycles, walk cycles, etc. Of course, this might look a lot like character rigging, but the difference is that this rig is to be used to try and suspend disbelief alongside live-action footage and as such will be much more of a challenge than rigging and animating something which has come entirely from my imagination.

Hopefully this makes this a little clearer.

Before I go, I've been amassing an impressively huge collection of reference images and videos of tigers and have started modelling the beast itself.

More on all that soon.