azmaybe9

Part 2.9: Having to Push Through

Added 2018-09-11 20:18:58 +0000 UTC

9/21/18: Having to Push Through

Fixed armature on the left side, old on the right.
Here you can see the culprit of why I had to take yet another step back to fix the hands problem in part 2. As much as I wanted to continue, I can't have the animation be held back by the armature's hand flailing about on the ground. This requires full hand replacement through the scene. I've already finished both of Neko's but Rin does a lot more flailing and falling than her. It's taken some time.
But you can clearly see that it's easier. The old armature required constantly moving the fingers to adjust for random rotation on every single keyframe when it was on the ground. The new one can be stiff as a rock when necessary and doesn't flail. At all.

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9/19/18: Prep for Part 3
In order to reach part 3, I need to get everything animated up to the hallway scene. Nobody cares about the hair right now though. I need to make sure the tail and Rin's hands are animated now. Once everything reaches the hallway, only then can I create part 3 project file. Getting caught up though, I have fully replaced the Neko's left hand's keyframes with IK but still need to replace Rin's hands. Rin's face is now animated.

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9/-/18: Physics Success
Surprised it's been a bit since the last scroll update but I've been practicing physics and getting the Pyra vid extended for the sound version soon to be released. So I'll start this post with the physics "cage" technique I learned in Blender that UwA told me about. Turns out redoing the physics in Blender instead of relying on the old rigid bodies can be better and less buggy than MMM. Which really surprises me since MMM had no problem with this stuff. Wonder how it did scaling. Anyways, it could never be as detailed for skirt physics like this because I'd always have to hand-animate the skirt.

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9/13/18: Hands-on experience
Some great news about the Pyra vid. I went back and adjusted some parts based on fan comments. Took the crown off, had her breasts visible at the end when looking over the cliff, and added 2 extra scenes of her relaxing across the valley at a MASSIVE size. (Legs were screwy to work with but it got done) Unfortunately, my attempts to get physics working the way I wanted to didn't go too well. I NEED to find out how to do it in Blender properly because UE4 physics can't import the model's physics data. (Creating physics from scratch. It's only meant for game-like environment usage instead of detailed model animation)

-So I finally had to face my fears of the hands not being rigged correctly.
There hasn't been any pictures because it's pretty much re-tracing all of my steps after fixing the hand problem. The problem was that every motion in the upper body would effect the rotation of the hands. Due to this, It's impossible to keep them flat on the ground or used as a steady point when getting up. (The hands would require adjustment on EVERY frame when used in this fashion. I was ok at this but the hands visibly shake after adjustment)
I fixed the hand IK by retracing what I practiced in the Pyra video. The IK joint points to the wrist, the wrist and lower arm are IK-connected to the hand's tip, and the hand's tip is parented to the IK joint.
Top it off with the wrist's IK set to copy the direction of the IK AND the rotation and you've got a combination that makes the hand steady like a rock! A little weird when moving the model around and the hand is completely steady, but you get used to it.
I've been retracing the hands in that vid and adding extra clips onto the Pyra vid as well for the sound release.

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9/11/18: Up and Out

Back to this massive growth scene, Neko is now animated up to part 3! I still gotta work on the hands and facial features though.