Tutorials Used

Animating Tutorials used:

http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/11/16/creating-a-face-rig/

http://www.renderosity.com/using-shape-keys-in-blender-3d-cms-14021

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCshMVeM5Jg

Modelling tutorials used:

http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/03/02/bundle-complete-head-modeling-series/

Final Render

Evil/Angry Expression



Happy/Shy Expression



Sleepy Expression

Animating Continued - Using Shape keys

Shape keys were added for the movement of the eyes and mouth, using each key by adding and altering the mesh for blender to calculate the change between 0 being the normal mesh and 1 being the edited version.

The action editor allows for shape keys to be key framed along side key framing the bones in the main timeline. This was done by selecting the action editor and moving the sliders for each action to accommodate the timeline for the shape keys. For key framing the bones the bones were selected and key framed using the i key to insert a key location and a key rotation and between to points in the timeline Blender works out the change in between.

Eye and mouth rig problem

There was issues using weight paint on the eyes as the mesh would not move properly when in pose mode after parenting with the constraints. Shape eyes were added for the eyes and mouth movement.

Test Renders

Here's a test render of the finished character model using ray tracing.



This is a test render of the goblin with a hat made around the head and a cloth modifier added within the physics buttons in blender using the denim preset option and baked. Once baked a frame was selected in the timeline to use and accessed the object option and applied deformation in the scripts options.



This is a test without raytracing and altered lights this is much quicker to render than to using raytracing.

Animating

Animating the eyes and mouth with weight painted controller bones didn't work well at all with the mesh I used as the painting was very difficult to get the right part to move without stretching too much. However the body bones worked well with weight painting. I will need to explore different methods to move the eyes and mouth to move correctly.

Weight Painting

Selected the mesh and weight painted the bones, red is a strength of one and blue is 0 this determines which bone move a certain part of the mesh.