Week 11

So this week was a big humungous mess of troubleshooting and just trying to fix issues. With only a week left to work on this before presentations, it looks like I won't have this done before Summer. Good, because I'm having too much fun with this thing to just call it quits when I turn it in.

Last week I ran into some issues with my antennae. The first problem was when I would rotate the head, the antennae would over shoot the rotation and thus exaggerate the movement. This was a clear sign of a double transform. I spent several days trying to figure out why this was occurring and it wasn't until I sat down with a peer that we figured out the issue was due to a poor pivot point. Returning that to a better spot fixed the issue. Sadly, that did not remove the largest issue I had. I would move the head up or down, but the antennae would seem to want to stay in one area despite moving with the head. To clarify, I would move the head up, and the antennae would seem to begin to sink as it moved up with the head, causing a weird stretch. This took me days to figure out and it wasn't until I sat down with my professor and spent a good amount of time until he was able to figure out my problem and create a fix.

In the picture above, you can see two control rings, but their control pivots seem to be in the same place. It is because there are actually two joint nodes, one on top of the other, but still connected to a hierarchy. I never thought to use this little trick despite just recently learning about it. So I did a parent constraint with the joint leading directly to the pincers and antennae to the second controller and then moved the antennae controllers underneath (parenting them to the head controller.) Before I did this, though, I had to reconstruct the head's skeleton, ik splines, and controls due to some serious alignment issues that could not be ignored. This project has been proven to be a pain in the butt, but has surprisingly been really fun to work with. Everyone tells me rigging is a pain and they try to avoid it, but it's a necessary thing, and if I can get past how frustrating it can be, it's actually really cool!


I don't even mind weight mapping. I may not be the best at it, but I just have to learn and get better. weight mapping an inset is one thing, because it's mainly just segments, not as fluid as a human being, so I have to ensure that a single joint controls a large portion of the geo to make it appear stiff and mechanical.

As you can see, that line of thinking is paying off, and now I have a row of mechanical legs ready to tread some dirt.










Sadly, with only one week left, I won't be able to have this thing completely done, but this only means I get a nice little side project to work on over the summer. But, for now, I have to recreate the controls I originally had before this incident, and see if I can get back to texturing, and hopefully, animating!