Last week we had a meeting with our supervisor. We showed him what we have made so far. when he looked at the teddy bear he told us that because of the shape of the tummy and the hips, the hip joint should not be placed at the same place like a human but further down, because it will affect the tummy and the bum of the teddy. He also looked at the arms of the teddy and pointed out that the the thumb should be moved so that it has more elbow space.
He suggested that I should rig and skin the model to test it out, and if I found any problems with the models, included the stuff he mentioned above, I should fix the problem areas.
The model have been tested in CAT, and we have decided to give the teddy bear thighs, and move the thumb. This is now fixed, and the model is already tested again. It seems like the model works better now.
We have also successfully tested out cloth, and have decided to use it in our film. We only have some few problems with buttons, but these problems will soon be fixed when we find a solution.
For a long time we have been testing fur and hair. After the first test we decided not to use it in our film, but we are always playing with the idea of using fur and hair in our film. Therefore we have decided to test fur and hair more. We have now tested out fur in Maya on the teddy bear. It is easier to control the fur in Maya than in 3ds Max. We also have a successful test of dynamic and collision test of fur in Maya. Although hair and fur is easier in Maya we have decided not to make the hair and fur in Maya because we are going to Animate in 3ds Max, and these two programs do not "communicate" well with each other.
We have found some good tutorials for hair and fur in 3ds Max, which we are going to test out as soon as possible.
One of our group member watched Final Fantasy, Advent of children the other day and was amazed with the quality of the hair in the film. He googled how they made the hair, and figured out that it is not very complicated. We decided to test it out and if it turns out well we are going to do it that way. Here is a link for a tutorial which uses the same technique.
The 3d model of the house is finished, we are now making a pre-visualization of our film now. This will make it easier for us to make the animations, and for the musician to make the music. We will also have some voices ready soon.
