Progress Report 2/24/2023

The little old lady who lived in a shoe is gonna be SO jealous! Here's what I got done this week:

• Finished unwrapping the shoe's UVs
• Finished texturing the shoe
• Finished rigging the shoe
• Set up a scene with the shoe and two base character models
• Found two good video references for the animation
• Did some last-minute research into how to animate

I've gotta say, I'm VERY proud of how this shoe came out! Finishing the unwrapping process was simple enough, although the texture on the front of the shoe does tend to bow outwards a bit. Fortunately, it's not noticeable with a flat texture like we have here.

As for the texturing, a couple of ideas failed, but otherwise everything went absolutely swimmingly! The footprint inside the shoe took far longer to get right than I'm willing to admit, but it adds an extra layer it wouldn't have had otherwise, so it was time well-spent! I even added my name in the sole!... Hmm... That seems awfully familiar, now that I think of it...

Lastly, I rigged up the shoe with four bones: the root, one for bending/stretching the back, and two similar bones on the front end on each side. The weight painting on this was so, so, SO much easier than on a human. It was still my least favorite part, mind you, but at least it was simple! (I will say that the lace in the front gave me some issues, though...)

I'm not gonna put this much detail into every shoe that I make; this particular shoe will be very front-and-center in the animation. So, any guesses on what the animation will be yet?

I wanted to at least get started on animating this week, but life sorta got in the way a bit. I did at least get everything in the scene, save for the background; I'm gonna add that in last once I have an idea of where the camera will be looking. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me. o_o

Anyhoo, that'll do it for now. Here's hoping the actual animating goes smoothly! I'm gonna give myself a temporary five-point buff to my animation skill with some Taco Bell -- every animator's secret weapon. It's like steroids for us. I'll see you guys again next week!