Hi, i have just been working on a model of Mike wazowski from monsters inc.

Im using Silo and have only been working on him for a couple of days, but since im still not to good at finishing a model i want to get this one completed.

i was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how to clean up the mesh or anything else you might notice from the pics.

i have gotten rid of all 3 sided polys and i have 6 (12 once mirrored) polys with more than four sides. these are mainly in his hand.

If i manage to finish the mesh i will offer it for free to anyone interested in UV mapping and texturing him... i have never really UV mapped before so that may take me a while.

Thanks for viewing

John

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heres a close up of his shoulder

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heres the hand, with the 5 sided polys selected

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Looks good man. Definately git rid of ngons. Tri's are not alwas evil and can not be avoided sometimes. Better a Tri than an ngon. Ngons do weird stuff when sub divived and don't render well either.  Just do a little cutting and conecting and get rid of those ngons even if you do make Tri's.  It's kind of like solving a puzzle sometimes you may have to do temporary steps to get in a position to make the real fix. If that makes any sense

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"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

Albert Einstein

Try some connections like this and see if that takes you anywhere.  Oh yeah sometime you will get the edge flow where you want it but your model will be looking a little boxy or pinched. That is totally cool. All ya need i a little tweaking and smoothing. And don't forget about  soft selection it will make your point pushing and pulling look so much better so much faster.  Hope this stuff helps

____________________________________________________

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

Albert Einstein

Thanks for your help guys.. im very happy you replied so quickly.

I have fixed the mesh now so there is only 2 triangles on the sole of his feet(1 on each) and there is no ngons.

I have also changed his arm posistion so its easier if i rig him and i have added more geometry around the eye so its possible to pull his eyelids to a closed position.

he still needs some hand claws, but if anyone is interested in UV mapping him let me know and ill send him your way.

Thanks

John

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Sounds like you got it under control man. By the way I use Silo too and it rocks. It has some great uvmapping tools as well. If you want I'll map him for you though.

____________________________________________________

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

Albert Einstein

yeah Silo, is pretty cool.. i learnt modelling in Maya so there is a few things im still getting used to. but  for the most part it feels easier and more natural than maya.

oh one thing i might ask while im here, in Maya when your selecting multiple faces or verts etc. and you accidently select a face you can use Ctrl+click to remove that face from selection. That doesnt work in Silo, is there a way to remove accidently selected peices.?

once i have finished the claws, ill send you him and you can have a go at UV mapping :) id like to see how he looks properly textured. :)

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You can ctrl + Shift + click to add and subtract from a selection. Just shift clicking only lets you add.
I'll  send you a site mail with my email  so you can send him over when you are ready. Oh yeah have you checked out the video tuts at Nevercenter. They are way cool and I picked up a lot on the interfaces just watching them.

____________________________________________________

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

Albert Einstein

thatnks cybermonk ill give that a try.  oh i sent you the OBJs in an email.. If anyone else wants to have a go please let me know :)

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hey guys, i am now at the stage where i want to rig mike now.. i have textured him.. i still need to fix some seams but he looks ok for now, i only want to render the fron ATM..

Im wishing i carried on modelling in the original pose because im having major trouble rigging him.

Ive never succesfully rigged anything before and the only program i have with rigging is Poser.

I have follwed some tutorials on rigging and i keep getting the same problems.. once the bones are in and i return to the pose room in poser i move the arm and the legs and body are affected and go all over the place..

I have been grouping him in Silo but i don know whats going on. anyone have an idea?

Im just rendering the textured version and will post him soon

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heres the textured pic :D

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1909687

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Looks good man. Nice texture. As for the rigging problem.... check out these vids  from PhilC particularly the one on joint setup. www.youtube.com/user/philcdesigns I bet you are having problems with blend zones. That is just a matter of adjusting them until you exclude the areas you don't want affected.

____________________________________________________

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

Albert Einstein

Thanks for the link, i hadnt realised hehad done the vids on joint parameters, i had seen the others though. :D ill give that a go :D

do you have any ideas on what groups to give him, i mean he doesnt really have a hip, chest torso etc. layout.?

do you think just giving him Torso, Arm, forearm, hand, fingers, ---thigh, leg, ankle, foot, toes.. souns good??

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You don't have to cut him up or name exactly like poser standard figures. Cut him up as you see fit. Just make it consistent and logical.  as far as the fingers and toes go you can rig them are just make a few morphs for them. 

____________________________________________________

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

Albert Einstein

oh man this rigging is hard.. i have tried a few different methods now, used the heirarchy editor, creating a PHI file and using the setup room.

I dont think it is my area of expertise hehe.

I think this is going to take me a very long time :(

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Once you get it the first time, it will get easier.  Helps a lot to save your work in incremented names to make it a little easier to recover when you hit one of the many serious bugs with Poser's shitty rigging tools.  385 bones in this one.

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wow, thats very very cool!! i really wouldnt have the patience for that one hehe :D have you tried the DAZ studio figure setup tools at all? im wondering if that is any easier?

This really does seem to have me beat hehe

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I can't afford the DAZ setup tools.  I can tell you some things that can help you avoid some of the bugs with the Setup room and other aspects of rigging:

• When you are adding bones in the Setup room, hide every bone you do not absolutely need visible.  Poser very "helpfully" changes your selection when drawing bones with the Bone tool and when you're placing bones that are close together, e.g. at the fingers, it can happen that you end up with a bone that has the incorrect parent.  You are screwed at this point and Undo will often leave you with a broken hierarchy with joints that don't deform the figure any more.  Revert to a saved file before this happened.
• Sometimes when you place bones very close to other bones, like at the fingers, they can also have screwed up hierarchy and stop deforming the figure.  I'm not sure if this is related to, or the same as, the problem named above, but as of now I just don't draw bones near each other any more.  I find it safer to just draw them off in space and then adjust them with the Joint Editor outside of the Setup room.
• When you are adjusting falloff zones and they start to "tumble", sometimes you can stop this from happening by zeroing any rotation of the falloff zone first, then adjusting position and scale, and then re-applying rotation.
• If you are doing a rig that employs "body handle" geometry, like the posing handles I've put on different skirt rigs, leave the handle geometry out of the CR2 until the very end.  It's a bit inconvenient to be forced to select those bones from menu only but it's also a lot safer.
• All bones at the symmetry line should always have X translation values of zero.  Also rotation values for Y and Z axes should be zero.  The Joint Editor can be misleading because it only shows three decimal places.  Sometimes you get an amusing "-0" in a value.  Force these values to be zero either by typing them into Joint Editor, or by editing the CR2 afterward (editing the CR2 is the only way to be really, really sure).  If any of these values at the symmetry line bones are not zero, then your rig is not symmetrical, which is bad when you have a symmetrical mesh (the mesh will not deform symmetrically).

oops one more:  Sometimes you have a "-0" in a value and simply typing in "0" will not get it to be properly zero.  Type in some other integer value like 1, and then change it back to 0.

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thank you very much for the tips :) ill try and keep that  in mind. :D

Ill let you know how i get on

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pjz99 posted at 9:30 AM Mon, 6 July 2009 - #3476417 drift boss

I can't afford the DAZ setup tools.  I can tell you some things that can help you avoid some of the bugs with the Setup room and other aspects of rigging:

• When you are adding bones in the Setup room, hide every bone you do not absolutely need visible.  Poser very "helpfully" changes your selection when drawing bones with the Bone tool and when you're placing bones that are close together, e.g. at the fingers, it can happen that you end up with a bone that has the incorrect parent.  You are screwed at this point and Undo will often leave you with a broken hierarchy with joints that don't deform the figure any more.  Revert to a saved file before this happened.
• Sometimes when you place bones very close to other bones, like at the fingers, they can also have screwed up hierarchy and stop deforming the figure.  I'm not sure if this is related to, or the same as, the problem named above, but as of now I just don't draw bones near each other any more.  I find it safer to just draw them off in space and then adjust them with the Joint Editor outside of the Setup room.
• When you are adjusting falloff zones and they start to "tumble", sometimes you can stop this from happening by zeroing any rotation of the falloff zone first, then adjusting position and scale, and then re-applying rotation.
• If you are doing a rig that employs "body handle" geometry, like the posing handles I've put on different skirt rigs, leave the handle geometry out of the CR2 until the very end.  It's a bit inconvenient to be forced to select those bones from menu only but it's also a lot safer.
• All bones at the symmetry line should always have X translation values of zero.  Also rotation values for Y and Z axes should be zero.  The Joint Editor can be misleading because it only shows three decimal places.  Sometimes you get an amusing "-0" in a value.  Force these values to be zero either by typing them into Joint Editor, or by editing the CR2 afterward (editing the CR2 is the only way to be really, really sure).  If any of these values at the symmetry line bones are not zero, then your rig is not symmetrical, which is bad when you have a symmetrical mesh (the mesh will not deform symmetrically).

oops one more:  Sometimes you have a "-0" in a value and simply typing in "0" will not get it to be properly zero.  Type in some other integer value like 1, and then change it back to 0.

These are really helpful tips!