Redesigning the King's Bedroom

New bedroom design

Other Side View - Body Fully Rigged

Other Side View - Body Rigged

Scaling Works Correctly 

Back View - Body Fully Rigged

Back View - Body Rigged

Character scaling works correctly (Node Editor)

Front View - Body Fully Rigged (facial rigging to be completed)

The front view to my character is now fully body rigged. I need to finish the body rigging for the back view and the other side view too. Once the body rigging is complete, I will move onto the facial rigging.

Front View - Completed Body Rigged

Scaling my character works correctly (node editor) 

Body Rigging - The other three sides

I have created the controls for the last 3 sides to my model. I need to group all of the assets to my characters in the outliner, color individual controls and clean up my files. Once I have completed these tasks I will make a start on facial rigging.

Side View - Rigging

Back View - Rigging

Front View - Rigging

Timeline - Personal Help

With Alan's advice I have roughly sketched out a timeline of my animation, marking the key points of change in the music. I have highlighted on the emotion, pitch and speed of the music. This has really helped me understand that the actions and movement in my animation need to flow with the music and to not feel separated.

I understand that my animation needs more continuity, as it feels very mechanical right now. I want to bring back the joy and emotion! I am hoping to achieve this by making each shot connect and relate to each other. Showing more of a journey, rather than just snapshots of a story.

My timeline for my animation:
(Sorry about the image quality but its mainly for my personal use)

Personal Timeline

Redesigning the King's Bedroom

Redesigning the Room

After speaking with Alan I have had another go at redesigning the bedroom. I have stripped it back to coloured lines and I think this is much closer to the 'UPA' style. Also in the first couple of shots I intend to make the lines gradually disappear so that he can enter the 'new world' filled with shapes and colour.

Adding blend shapes to all the mid hand joints

I had forgotten to add blend shapes to the mid hand joints to each view of my character. Not all characters need this, but the mountain king has uniquely, shaped hands to fit with the 'UPA' Style. The blend shapes have helped clean up some of the geometry. 

Mid Hand Joints - Pose Space Deformers

Mid Hand Joints - Pose Space Deformers

Blendshapes - Side View

Side View 

Ankle joint

Ankle joint

Elbow joint

Elbow joint

Football joint

Football joint

Wrist joint

Wrist joint

Grids Dynamics: Part 2

Blend Shapes - Back View

Ankle joint

Ankle joint

Ankle joint

Elbow joint

Elbow joint

Football joint

Football joint

Wrist joint

Wrist joint

Blend Shapes - Front View

I have created blend shapes for the wrists, elbows and ankles. The wrists are pretty extreme but I wouldn't bend them that much anyway. I am debating whether the football joints need them too.

Elbow joints

Ankle joints

Ankle joints

Wrist joints

Wrist joints

Back View - Smoothing (skinning) @Alan

For someone reason I really struggled to smooth the back view. I'm not sure that my skinning is completely accurate, especially in the hat's bobble because the bending looks unnatural and I couldn't figure out why. 

I'm also not sure on what to do with the head? When I tilt the head it creates a gap, spoiling the illusion.  However, the king doesn't tilt his head when he is facing backwards in the animation. He is only facing backwards when he is hanging over one of the loop shapes.

Head

Knee joint

Chest joint

Wrist joint

Elbow joint

Hip joint

Lumbar 02 joint

Lumbar 01 joint

Hat bobble

Hat bobble

Front view - smoothing (skinning)

I have now finished skinning the front view by adding some additional smoothing to the joints

Arm bend

Pelvis bend 

Pelvis bend

Chest 

Chest 

Neck leaning to one side

Neck leaning to one side 

Beard movement

Beard movement 

Hip movement