Howdy folks! Nicky Knox has officially been brought to life... mwahahaha!
UPDATES: After completing the model, I realized the mesh had to be smoothed to appear smooth in Unreal. After adjusting this and fixing a few overlaps in the UVs, I jumped into texturing. I used a hand-painted style to make him feel more unique and expressive. I then began work on the rig. So far, the bind joints are all in place and bound to the mesh. There is also a working IK/FK switch for the arms. I also used Advanced Skeleton for the face rig. Finally, I lit him for a test render in Arnold (did not have access to Unreal for the last few days).
Image 1: Frame from the WIP render shot. This shot depicts Nicky in the studio after the experimental portion.
Image 2: It seemed a bit depressing to only have a shot of Nicky down in the dumps, so here's a test render of a different pose.
Image 3: Nicky Knox rig WIP.
Video 1: WIP animation for the test render.
TO DO: there are some fixes to the rig that need to be made. The spine needs to be improved, the blink needs to affect more of the eyelid, and weight painting needs to be done for the legs. The buttons and bowtie need to be attached to the skin as well using the nHair technique. I would also like the glasses to have individual controllers to add overlapping action to their movement. Finally, I will animate the shot for the render test (blocking has begun, don't fret). Once these are complete, Nicky can be exported into Unreal. Retroactive additions not needed for the render test include an IK/FK leg system and textures for the lower half of the body.
SHOT LIST: As the rig finishes, we've been refining our shot list so we can dive right into animation. Here is the current version, able to be sorted by shot order or shot difficulty. The shot type and notes are also included