Four: Fixing Fins, Refining Geometry

  Speaking to Alan today a conclusion was made on Four's fins - that they would be fixed to her body and animated using a series of bones.

  This afternoon was used to merge the fins to the body and add some geometry to smooth things out and provide flexibility during animation. Because of the bones in the tail, the best solution could be the joints for the fins branch out from the joints in the tail, with their use being to give the fins flow.

  I also had to reconstruct Four's head tendrils by adding extra geometry rings to the tubes. Remembering the rule of thumb that quads work best as squares or near-squares. The quads for the tendrils were very elongated before restructuring. And this time around there is much less pulling from neighboring geometry.

 

During remodeling I also remembered my considerations for Four's nostrils being on her neck. I at first tried putting them low down, but moved them up to be somewhere with less stretch and flex. The way they are angled however I might change. Or I might move the middle nostril to her right a little to make their arrangement less straight.

  I have most of the controls in place and some have their parameters set. It will be a manner of skinning and testing. Which will have to wait until the model rework - which includes reworking some UV maps - is finished.

  While the models used will need to be replaced due to very different geometries now, I also started on the groundwork for creating the eyebrows and eyelid motions. They're not skinned yet so it will be a simple manner of swapping models to continue the work. It took some trial and error to get the eyelid joints in the right place and to be able to rotate effectively but what I have is close enough that I am relatively happy with the placement of the joints that control the tilt of the eyes.