This body will be the most used part in Scene 5. You'll see why when we get there. It was a tough job, but someone has to do it. Since I have no helpers or support, it's up to me. So, this started out with a low polygon, high detail vector graphic in Corel Draw. I intentionally exaggerated the features because I wanted it to look like a human form. It actually started out as a girl, but it ended up being far too bulky. So instead of messing around for an hour to make it look girlish, I decided to make it more manly. So I pulled in the hips, mellowed the angles of the chest, and messed with the arms. There were plenty of problems with the original. Since it was a front view, it left an awful job for the side view when I got to MS3d. Simply enough, I just traced the Corel Draw Vector Graphic into MS3D (a very easy process, I might add). Then I extruded it, capped the back, mirrored for both sides. Then I had a 3d person, who had a flat front and back. So I brought the sides in and out, back and forth. In MS3D, you just get used to pulling vertexes where they ought to be using the side view, front view, and guess and check. I assume that 3D Studio MAX 3, 4, Character Studio, etc have stuff like bezier spines, but in MS3D, you can't cop out like that. It's quality low-poly or the road. In the latest version of MS3D, Mete introduced my favorite new function, split 3 and split 4. The split 4 isn't very good, but from time to time, it does the job with a push here, a shove there, and a few added faces. Split 3 made those legs. I had an awful pair of legs and I was about to delete the entire thing when I remembered split 3. So I split two of the faces into 6. Then I deleted four faces and joined the vertices. I'm sure that if you use split 3, you also use this method. It essentially splits 2 faces into 4, very useful when you you have something flat and you want it curvy such as my legs. Hehehe, errm, that's a grammatical error. I have uncurvy legs, but my model has curvy legs (just look!). Anyway, push this vert, pull that vert, a couple regroups and here you have it. The problem was that I didn't have time to make a texture, so the stupid shirt and pants look like they're black satin. *punches himself* No on in JF wears black satin.
This collection of pictures is an interesting departure from normal stuff. More on that later. For now, we have a lesson to learn together. This is the making of a very cool little HAB. A HAB is a place where people live, specifically people from the future especially in space. Yup, as I say every day, JF is a futuristic sci-fi action comic, it will have cool non-2k2 stuff here and there. I kinda like thinking about the future. A dark and mysterious future that might not happen... Oooh, it sends chills up my over-excitable spine! As you can see, doors are important, non boxy-stuff is helpful, and a hexagonal cylinder is a good representation of a real cylinder. The doors are a major part, without them it'd be not much more than a few boxes and a few blobs. I just regrouped the two triangles and gave them a darker material. I decided that boxes weren't in the best interest of a hexagon.
This guy will be in Scene six. He's low Polygon but for some reason he sux. *sigh* Que sera sera. He took less time than I sPent talking to a girl today. See below. What you may learn here is ProPer use of a skeleton. You can see to the right we have the general human standing limP skeleton. No big deal. Then you Put the main animation into it. For this, it's throwing arms uP and leaning back. Then, add a bit of randomness. PeoPle usually Prefer their right or left. If they're in danger, they'll head to either the side that they're leaning on or the side that they Prefer. Chaos theory says that it's random but I say bullocks to that. If you're leaning over a railing and a gust hits you and you fall to your death, it's not because it's random, it's natural selection. ^=^ Hold onto the railing is what your mother would've said. Back to animation. After randomness add reactive animations. These are animations that are caused by the main animations. It's easiest to just try it yourself, but if you want to calculate it, it's not very hard. You have center of mass that you rotate around, add in centers of ProPulsion and there you have it. but that's rigid body Physics. You need more than that. One thing that's better than rigid body is intuition. Often Physics just exPlains what you know from intuition. Before you sigh and skiP a Physics Problem, try to think of yourself in the situation... Your mind calcuates Physics faster and better than a Gigahertz Pentium, I am certain of it, or else no one could walk.
Yukito Kishirois a master of the artform known as manga. His writing is poetry(even though it's translated into English) his drawing is more descriptive and beautiful than a billion words.
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