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.

Rigging The Eyes

Added an armature set out the neck and head bone and eye lid and eye ball bones. Selected B-bones and segmented the neck to give much move flexible movement increased the segments to 4. Parented the eye bone to the eye lid bone using Ctrl + P and keeping the offset Selected Bone rather than armature Added a bone for the eyes to look at in front of the armature renamed and shift selected the eye bones and used a IK Constraint with Shift + i. Selected the eyelid bones and shift selected the head bone and parented them together. Result: To fix this the "ChainLen" (Chain Length) was increased with both eye bones from 0 to 1. Eye Test:


After Duplicating the mouth rig to the eyes the controller bones were selected and applied with limit distance constraints linked to the eyeball.



Selected the controller bones and parented them to the eyelid bones and kept the offset.

Activated an IK constraint like the eyes but with the eyelids to make them follow with the eye and gave the influence 0.1 to prevent the eye lids moving as much the same as eyeball.

Rigging the mouth

Added bones around the mouth on one side and named them accordingly. selected one and used the shift + S tool to make the selection the cursor and added a linking bone selected the first bone and the top of the newly added connection bone and used the shift + s tool to make the cursor the cursor the selection. Extruded the bones as well this is the result:



mirrored over the bones by duplicating and flipping the names.
switched direction with W and switch direction with the connection bones.


linked the two middle connector bones on the top and bottom with Ctrl + P and kept them connected.

Added 4 segments to each connector bone:



Bone connectors are selected and Ctrl + N is used to clear the roll of the segments.

the corner of the mouth bones parented to the connector bones and kept offset.

In pose mode the connector bone and the mouth bone are shift selected and a strech to constrain was added with Ctrl, Alt and C. This allow the connector bone to stretch to where the mouth bones are moved. Repeated this around the mouth.

Selected the mouth rig and duplicated it for the eye lids.

Modelling the goblin

Modelling the set

Here is a set I was going to use for the animation but the render times for this are pretty long without the character in the scene. If there was more time I would of liked to encorperated the scene into the animation. The scene is a newsroom where the goblin was going to get angry and aggressive towards spiderman on the news.

Research

Heres and example of anger similar to what I want my model to be animated like.

This is video shows a suprise happy face expression, this is another face idea i want to cover.

This is a video covering people trying to stay awake.

For my animation sequences I would like to cover 10 seconds of the different videos.

Project Idea

My idea is for a new character (a form of enemy) in Spiderman. The character will be something similiar to both the green goblin and the hob goblin. The animation will be on the new form of goblin threatening spiderman on a news channel using facial expressions and hand gestures.

The expression ideas I have in mind are either a laughing or a cursing/angry style approach.

Character something like ...

Green Goblin



Hob Goblin



The Set will be in a news room...

News Room