Character Creation: Duck-Billed Platypus Part 5

Today I started painting the weights on the model. To do this I went to Skin>Edit Smooth Skin>Paint Skin Weights Tool. To change the size of the brush you can hold B and holding the left click of the mouse change the brush size. With the geometry selected and by pressing 7 the model goes black so that you can change the influence of the joints on the mesh.

 

I didn't enjoy this process as it is very tedious and dull, and created many problems, such as this one: where the beak and tail seem to have some how stopped following the skeleton while still being attached to the geometry, which I will have to resolve tomorrow.

The issue turnout out to be lack of influence of the paint tool on the geometry controlled by the skeleton, this was easily fixed by selecting the head control and painting its influence over the beak. I continued to use this technique over the just of the model only coming across one other issue, where certain edges seem to not apply the influence, or rather apply it but not recognize to save it. This is another issue I will have to resolve at a later date.

Using the smooth brush helped a lot with this model, as is softens the influence around the rest of the mesh allowing the model to move more realistically and smoothly. I used this one and the 'replace' brushes for the entire model.

I applied this technique to the entire model, sometimes changing the position to find vertex that need more/less influence. I then Added attribute to the platypus' eyes. rather than use the same ones on the alien, I felt it more appropriate to use only the attributes he'd need, and as he has big wide webbed feet I didn't really feel he needed the peel heal and feet ones, and as he never clenches his fist he didn't need that one either. He did however need to blink and widen his eyes, as that he can sleep (in the last shot) and look surprised/shocked (when he finds the trashed village.) To do this I made attributes Blink and Widen Eye, gave them set driven keys (the controls) and keyed the eye lids at 0 for each (so that is their natural state) and at wide at -10 for the Widen Eye attribute, and at 10 for the Blink, which closes the eye.

The next stage of the Platypus is to complete tests of animation such as walk cycles.