Week1 11/02/25

The first set of work I did was for a quick humanoid rig. I was given an FBX model for a skeleton and imported the file into MAYA. I had some issues with one of my versions so I used the 2023 version of the platform and luckily that solved some menu problems I had.

After importing the model I clicked the T pose icon in the top right of my workspace in Maya. I then clicked on the quick rig tool since I’m making something quick and easy for the skeleton to move. There are other options here which I’m sure I’ll be trying out.

The plus icon in the top right of the quick rig is what I used to select my skeleton mesh. Immediately Maya was able to process the data from the skeleton and build a quick rig for me.

I adjusted some of the points for a more accurate rig on the skeleton character, enabling it to move as if it had working limbs.

Under skeleton rig and generation I hit create/update.

I changed the skeleton setting to skeleton only and finally clicked create/update finishing my quick rig.

After successfully creating a rig for my skeleton I could now import a piece of already made animation that will be used as reference for a fun little dance at the end of the lesson. My skeleton will be able to copy the dance from the imported stick model.

I selected my animation character reference and went in to source and selected ‘Hierarchy’

I created a new character in my character controls tab for the new imported animation.

I struggled connecting the limbs of the character movement model I imported in, however I found the issue below.

I found out my animation wouldn’t work on the skeleton because I didn’t have the reference in a T pose. I didn’t know how important it is for the model to be in this position when referencing to the character controls.

After successfully choosing the correct limbs to the body network I could attach the body movement to the skeleton. Down below you may see that I have the skeleton character selected with my movement reference as my source for the skeleton.

Homework build a Robot in Maya

week 2 Using Zbrush and Maya

This lesson we were using Zbrush again for the design of the robot and also substance painter for the texturing. We made some robot feet this lesson and added things like rust for the textures.

below is the texture and model of my robot foot. The textures for it aren’t really metal, I was just experimenting in this lesson with some fabric type stuff with the patterns of a metal. Just trying things out.

Similar to how photoshop works, substance painter also uses a layer system for arranging the way an object or an image looks. You can do some cool patterns using this system.

I added this in to Maya with the textures and made a body for the legs to be attached to. Its important that I note how it is very important to set up a project in maya before exporting the obj file out to substance painter. This is so when I export the textures out of substance painter I can add them in to the source images folder where Maya can read the files in easier.

I brought in the James automation file and rigged the fbx as well as my made up body using thew same method from last week to get the two moving.

This lesson was a great recap for substance painter as well as zbrush. Great lesson for me remembering the tools and how to imp[ort the files back and forth.

Week 3 25/2/25

So I’ve imported the jerry can as an FBX in to my scene.

Then I’ve clicked automatic UV’s, Maya has gone and done the UV mapping itself. This is so when I export the work in to substance painter I can successfully bring out the textures successfully. Otherwise the textures will be stretched and warped.

Opened substance with these settings so that the UV’s I set are accepted and used.

Baked the fbx model before doing anything with the texturing.

Added the steel texture as well as a paint texture and applied a white mask while also adding a generator. Inverting the skin of the steel texture and the paint and adjusting the generator settings to create this rust look.

Import recourses is for decals. Images that you want to add to the model.

By changing the opacity I could make the decal (hazard sign) look worn. The st5icker now looks like its coming off the can.

mocap

The motion capture was a fun add on lesson. Learning how the motion capture works while also creating cool movements for our robot characters made for a very creative lesson.

I really enjoyed the experience with my class mates seeing what they wanted their robots to do and coming up with movements for my own robot.

One issue I found on some of the saved movements we did on the day was that the characters would disappear in three frames. The Bender character would vanish when using some of the dance/movements.

I have a big issue at the moment with my model’s rig. For some reason there are still bad movements in the body that are acting weird in the animations. Head and legs are bending, the shoulders are twisting. I’m trying to understand the issue but I will keep the blog updated about this problem.

Textured version using 3D substance painter

I have fixed the error with the majority of the bad movement. The model was too small for the skeleton. After increasing the size and changing the placement of the joints my model is moving the way I want him to.

I have moved the head joint all the way to the antenna creating a more natural movement for the head as well as moving the toes outwards. This way the feet will trick Maya in to thinking my robot has toes, therefor creating a betting movement in the legs.

Animation fix

There’s still one issue I cannot fix and that is the character disappearing on random frames. This is not an issue with the renderer but an issue when linking the model to any of the mocap performance files.

week 7 Creating an arm and understanding the muscle layout.

We started off in Zbrush with a poly sphere. Then changing to a Zsphere.

Using the draw tool we extended the original poly sphere

Using the move tool to extend the original ball out even further for our biceps and tricep for the arm.

Repeating the draw and move tool process to create the lower section of the arm.

The final thing is a little bumpy, could be smoothed a bit more and have more defined muscles. The arm is already massive so that the muscles could be added correctly. The purpose of today was to understand the biology of limbs. Our next assessment will involve us creating creatures and rigging them. simple things like legs will require a lot of thought in the biology of the creature.

Rigging the hand and applying muscle contraptions

After quickly making a simple hand and arm design we went in to rigging mode in Maya and opened the shape editor window. We then made a simple key frame of the arm bending up as if the arm was tensing its bicep.

The shape editor will allow me to change parts of the hand in an animation and give me the options to revert back to the same shape after the animation. It gives me more control in changing parts of the hand.

week 10 22/04/25

ideas for my creature for this model:

A big foot woolly character. Similar to a big foot character.

Fox is a potential idea that I have. It’s something that I can easily take reference from where as the Wampa idea is more of a imaginative thing where I’d have to create my own reference. I like the idea of the Fox and the Wampa because their both hairy. I can use the Houdini grooming lesson for the hair of my animals.

Switching the creature up:

I’ve decided to go for a crab design. I think the ideas I had were cool to use the Houdini grooming program that we were taught how to make on a model. However the point of this module is rigging. I think a crab is a more complex creature for rigging and has more potential for movement. I have multiple legs and the claws to rig.

I dislike modelling, I don’t particularly enjoy it and I find the process difficult so I tried my best at creating a crab. I didn’t base it off of any particular species of crab because I don’t think it necessarily matters too much. This is the model below.

Week 11 29/04/25

How to make Antennas

First insert a cylinder

Duplicate the cylinder and select both clicking merge down. This will make the two cylinders become 1

The use the move tool and scale it to look however you want, easy!

This is important for my rigging! The antennas are going to be rigged for my assessment so it was crucial that I included these details in my model.

Low Poly OBJ version of my crab – poly count is 268

Substance Painter for texturing

Wasn’t sure what kind of colour I wanted. played around with a dark crab covered in a bit of dirt. My crab is its own species with references used from different types of crab.

Eventually I went back in to substance painter to texture a better more bright orange colour for my crab.

Played around with the lighting to show more detail which made the model look even better.

Rigging

Then I scaled the crab to be bigger

I really like this picture as it shows where all the movement is. The mouth, legs, claws, antennas are all rigged.

repeated the process for all the arms and parts of the body that I thought would stretch and leave poly data behind. This was a massive pain as I’d have to go and check if the movement was good when animating. Most of the time the movement was not good and I went to add more weights or change the location of where the weights were. Also My PC would crash a lot when doing the weights. Tried doing the same with the university computers however they would crash as well.

Regardless I think I was still able to complete a good rig.

Crab walk

(reference video below)

Crabs do walk sideways

These videos were meant to be demos, however they were too slow. The videos were still helpful since they gave me an idea of what it would look like.

Below is a video of my rig, me showing the movements of it. One thing I’d like to note is that for the crab’s right mouth piece I accidently deleted a rig point. So for the movement the right mouth is stretched to re-create the movement of what it would’ve looked like if I didn’t delete it. I don’t know when I deleted the mouth piece but I couldn’t get it back.