Bible Animations

As you guys can see, the focus this week was on characters - extras to be exact! I'm almost finished with them to the point where I can add them to the environment, but I still have a few characters to make single objects.

Definitely a lot of work went into these characters or extras, but just to give you guys a bit more info on how to approach characters, I want to list a few things:


Here are the most important things to make a character look different (existing shape keys may mean adjusting each expression, but not always if you stick to the Basis key):
 - Thin or thicken eyebrows, sometimes minor shape changes
 - Vertical spacing of the eyebrows
 - Eye size (openness) - requires iris size adjustment as well
 - Color changes (hair, eyes, skin tone, tongue and mouth, teeth, clothing, etc.)
 - Amount of eye lashes and outline of the eye
 - Line of the eye fold
 - Vertical spacing and size of the mouth
 - Shape of the chin
 - Freestyle lines

Larger changes:
 - On men, various beards/hair or none (this can also apply to other types like hair on the forearms for a black smith or chest hair, etc.)
 - On women, various lengths of hair
 - Clothing changes - can be minor by removing longer sleeves for example, but can be difficult, like the chamberlains' outfits.
 - Loose accessories - things like bags, weapons, staffs, umbrellas, hats, etc.

Changes you are better off doing from scratch:
 - Serious age changes (like 18 to 89)
 - Gender changes
 - Major weight changes (like super skinny to overweight)

The latter group of changes take so much time to adjust the rig and sculpting to smooth out issues, that you'd honestly be better off to get it done well in Make Human first, export to Blender and take it from there. It's truly not worth the effort to try and make those kinds of changes with shapekeys. The subtle differences between men and women can easily throw you off. If you want to try adjusting these things, that's your choice, but I really don't recommend it.


Let me give you some more examples of reuse - the mookleh (turban) Moses whore in the first vlog (below) - came from Esther 6. The teeth from Esther 6 are used in Exodus for every character, even the children! Same with trees, landscapes, objects, etc. Whatever I can re-use, you know I am going to, because it's a massive massive waste of time doing the same thing twice. Don't be lazy, but work smart.
So, to summarize - you can produce plenty of characters if you are willing to adjust a single character enough. Remember, these changes have to be within reason. It's not recommended to try and adjust ages and girth in an extreme way, nor to change the gender of a character.

If you have a project with lots of extras or even leading characters, I know this list will be of immense help to you!! If you are making a big project, I totally recommend you check out this post:
Esther 6, KJV - Tech and Method
   It goes into quite a bit more detail and links to a few specific tutorials that will help you make characters for the first time as well as bring down those render times.

Of course, credit has to go where it is due:
- GOD for giving me the insight into working more like this - it has made a world of difference in the size of projects that can be taken on.

- Make Human - Stunning program that gets you so far ahead, the progress is invaluable!! Thank YOU JESUS!
http://www.makehuman.org/

- Blender - The free open source 3D Suite without which none of the above would be here right now! I am so thankful for every piece of software I have available to use! Thank YOU LORD!
http://www.blender.org/

Know JESUS yet?
To find out more, you can check out this link:
http://www.crossallegiance.org/knowJesus.html
It gives you access to free Bible translations, free teaching videos and more. Remember, this is a decision with eternal consequence, choose life, choose JESUS. :D

Have a great one!!!

Thank YOU!!!!!!