Character Modeling Workflow

[lisa]

I'm a neophyte at character modeling and was just wondering if people had a preference when modeling a character to have the arms out at 90

[old school]

Neither am I but I have asked that same question of character modellers.

The answer is either will do. 90 degrees out is half way between the arm at the side and the arm straight up. Makes riggers a bit happier but it is no big deal for a rigger to pull the arms up and out from 45 to 90 if it makes the shoulder deform nicer when the arm extends straigth up. Just don't model the arms along side the body. That takes more work to get the shoulders to deform nicely.

[Andz]

I prefere to rig 45 degrees, easyer to make the shoulders look more natural when the arm is down.

[thekenny]

You really want to model everything in a neutral state based on the extremes expected during animation. This gives you the best bet to get proper coverage in the model for UV space and gives the rigger the best chance to always have a chain with a 'known' bend in them.

I try to recommend a weightless approach so the knees are slightly bent, arms are out at the side somewhere close to 45, (actually over 45 but not 90) but not rigid. Slight break in the wrist, slight break at each knuckle. Riggers get a bit twitchy with fingers as there is a slight rotation in all the fingers in this way and it makes them move a lot of pieces for each bone.

You want to ensure you have enough spans in the right places so you get nice compression and expansion of the geometry during deformation. This will help minimize the stretching.... if you expect there to be a lot of movement in an area you will have to accomodate the spans accordingly. There are some rules for edge loop modeling and how to cut the model to accommodate joint areas.

I would recommend you look at this site.

http://cube.phlatt.net/home/spiraloid/

Bay Raitt is a super modeler and knows his stuff. ( that little green guy from LOTR was good for a reason )

good luck.

[djorzgul]

he was more gray than green

[thekenny]

maybe it was my tv but you know at least who I was talking about !

hurrah!

-k

[old school]

That's the second link to Bay's spiraloid site in the last week on either forums...

Thanks for the response Ken.

[lisa]

I would recommend you look at this site.

http://cube.phlatt.net/home/spiraloid/

Bay Raitt is a super modeler and knows his stuff. ( that little green guy from LOTR was good for a reason )

good luck.

Thanks for this link. I noticed at his site that his characters were modeled with the arms below 90

[Moose]

I'm excited to see how the new zbrush will make most of these concerns non-issues. The ability to quickly pose your model as you sculpt within zbrush to achieve the best modelling experience, and then repose into a rigging pose before you export is surely going to be a boon. Well that's the theory anyway... we'll have to see if it's really that simple - but the preview vids did look promising.

[thekenny]

Will I be painting myself into a corner modeling or rigging-wise if I model the character with the palms facing out?

hmm.. I've never done that.. I guess it would remove the default twist in the topology ... when the plams are down you have to work the deformation into the flow of the model.. which I could see make it a bit different for rigging. however i still think at 1/2 way pose for anything is better so you get the range of motion on either side of that rest position.. more of a weightless pose if you will. So from that point of view it wouldn't but all the way up or all the way down.

you could try it out.. rig it and see what the differences are for your setup.

-k