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Monkey Rig


djpeanut

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  • 1 month later...

nice work djpeanut.. def coming along quite nicely..

a few comments:

1. his head seems uncomfortably small for his body. i'm sure you've checked in with reference images and know what the proportions are better than myself, but from a 3rd person viewing it and not specifically knowing, it feels too small and, to me, it *appears* as being "incorrect"..

2. the overall body of the monkey feels really bulbous and too uniform/regular.. this might be due to the hair.. don't know/can't tell.. but from appearences, it comes across as a very simple "tube and sphere" body that's been subdivided down to create a very evenly formed figure..

<edit>

just did a quick google search and found this image .. still feel the head could be larger.. and what's good to notice in the pic is how the body does actually have a pretty uniform figure, but there is still hints in the structure of the body that show through.. it's subtle, but there. for example, his shoulders are quite humped over and large which get interestingly smaller as it moves in to the arms.. and notice the slight curve in his back and along his stomach.. just those little touches i think will help.. but, then again, i don't know how far along the process you are and may not be able to go back and make changes..

anyways, here's the original pic:

http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/monkey/...ari-anim054.jpg

and here's the one i marked up to illustrate what i was talking about:

Monkey Pic

so yea.. those are my thoughts.. do what you will with them.. still think it's def coming along really well.. and im loving that l-system tree..

-dave

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Cheers guys, it's good to finally be getting something out of the months I've poured into Houdini :)

Here's the monkey in situ:

17345[/snapback]

:)

Even though the skin is black in reality, I would brighten it (just add a little bit of yello or a texture)...

Some variations in the hair geometry and color would be nice...

Arno

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a few comments:

1. his head seems uncomfortably small for his body. i'm sure you've checked in with reference images and know what the proportions are better than myself, but from a 3rd person viewing it and not specifically knowing, it feels too small and, to me, it *appears* as being "incorrect"..

2. the overall body of the monkey feels really bulbous and too uniform/regular.. this might be due to the hair.. don't know/can't tell.. but from appearences, it comes across as a very simple "tube and sphere" body that's been subdivided down to create a very evenly formed figure..

17356[/snapback]

Hey,

deecue: Thanks for the comments. I agree about the uniform body shape - the actual geo really isn't like that! What I need to do is sort out the orientation of the hair, as currently it's uniform all over. I think I will try combing the normals today, as they are what gives the hair it's initial orientation, and maybe loosen up the spring a little. (Btw the pic you posted is a female, whereas I'm modelling a male - there are a few important differences, including overall size and proportional size of head!)

spice: I've got a quick question - I need to make this hair a lot more opaque (see the image that deecue attached). Can you tell me how to alter your shader to do this without compromising the model? That was the reason I originally had it set up as closer to a diffuse shader :)

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yea, it really is... and i suppose that's what i was kinda getting at earlier in that i wonder if it's in the best interest of your project to use the right proportions.

People have been altering reality in their art since the paleolithic period.. and, in my opinion, it roots out of an artists ability to interpret and make visual decisions to enhance/change what they see. in the end, the work almost always benefits from it. And i'm not talking about abstraction, because obviously that's not what you're going for here. I'm talking about having the ability to make slight alterations that may be "technically" wrong but visually make much better sense. (They did this all the time during the renaissance with perspective and proportions.)

And I think you can only make that call per project as it will differ from time to time. i.e. if this were for a documentary style show played on Discovery about the structure, environment, life, etc of this monkey, then yes, I would say keep with the proportions and make it as accurate to life as possible. But if this is more of a story based animation, then maybe making changing this guy up a bit would be a good thing for many different reasons.

One big one being that your viewer (who 95% of the people out there won't know what this monkey is *really* supposed to look like) might come off distracted at how awkward it is rather than concentrating on the story and everything else going on. And for those who don't get distracted by it, there will be plenty of people in our field wondering "why is that monkey way off?". Once again, not paying attention to the story but rather the thought if mistakes were made..

And another big one being just for the pure visual interest of the animation. Ya know? How can this monkey still be done right, but slightly changed to become more interesting and incorporated into the style of the piece...

Those are just a couple thoughts but you see where i'm going.. in the end it's your call and there is no right or wrong.. it's just how you feel you can make this the best you can and in the direction that you want it to go..

hope my ramblings come across somewhat helpful.. :)

-dave

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Thanks for all the comments Dave. I know the monkey does look truly freaky in real life. This particular project I'm doing, however, is concerned with matching reality as closely as possible - hence why I've made the decision to stick to the actual proportions. A whole load of research went into this, including things like measuring the dimensions of actual skeletons and skulls, and that's the premise of what I'm doing!

:)

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