Okay, so today I messed around with Maya and tried to get this “Brenn” character rigged up. I’ve dabbled in Maya before, but I’m no expert, so this was a bit of a learning curve for me.
Getting Started
First, I opened up Maya and imported the Brenn model. I think it was an .obj file? Or maybe .fbx? Honestly, I can’t remember, I just clicked around until it showed up. It was just a static model, you know, standing there like a statue. My goal was to get it moving.
Joints, Joints, Joints
Next, I started adding joints. This is the part that always feels a little weird, like I’m playing digital chiropractor. I clicked around the skeleton creation tool, trying to put the joints in the right places – knees, elbows, spine, all that jazz. I probably messed up the placement a few times, but hey, that’s what the undo button is for, right?
- I used the joint tool. a lot of click.
- I keep rotate the view to check the position.
- Undo! Undo!Undo!
Skinning Struggles
Then came the skinning. This is where things got… interesting. I bound the mesh to the joints, which basically means telling Maya which parts of the model should move with which bones. It’s like digital puppetry, but without the strings (yet).
The initial results were… not great. When I tried to move a leg, half the torso would stretch along with it. It looked like some kind of body horror movie. Lots of fiddling with the skin weights followed. I painted weights, smoothed things out, and generally just poked around until it looked a little less terrifying.
Posing and (Minor) Success
After a good while of tweaking, I finally managed to get Brenn into a somewhat decent pose. It wasn’t perfect, there was some weird deformation around the shoulders, but hey, it was progress! I could move the limbs and the head without the whole thing collapsing into a digital blob.
Still Learning
So, that’s where I left it for today. It’s definitely not ready for any animation projects, but it was a good practice session. I still have a lot to learn about skinning and weighting, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to tackle that shoulder issue…
