RIGGING- CONTROL CURVES

Having Skinned and weighted the Rhino I am now in the process of creating IK handles and Controllers for the bones which will make it easier to animate. Seen above are the finished controllers for the Feet, Shoulders and also pole vectors for the knees.

WEIGHT PAINTING

Currently the bane of my life painting weights is slow and steady work. Seen above are the weights painted on the legs of the Rhino. They are relatively smooth in the X axis but further work is still required before I make the controllers.

SKELETON COMPLETE

Having completed the skeleton hierarchy and suitable skin bind the next step is to paint the weights. Pictured here are some ugly deformities on the front legs as we move them. These will have to be fixed.

RIGGING BEGINS

I've allocated myself till the 14th February, round about 2 weeks, to get the rigging and skinning of my character done. Here I am plotting the joint structure of the back legs and then mirroring them. 

CAPTURING AUDIO

The audio in my piece will be a voiceover in the style of David Attenborough. A third party (AKA my friend with the golden voice) agreed to be the voice of my piece in describing facts about the rhino. I booked out the sound studio and was able to record sufficient audio which can be synced to my piece.

IMPORTANCE OF A BUMP MAP

The above shot is a render of my rhino just with textures, looks ok but rather flat.

This render is with the bump map applied and brings out more of the Rhino hide that is far from smooth, I could also change the bump depth which would modify how deep the wrinkles and grooves would go. 

SATURDAY RENDER

With the texture of the Rhino still ongoing i'm slightly concerned at how realistic he looks, perhaps when we apply the bump map at a later stage the cracks in the rhino hide may become more prominent. Here i've imported the untextured trees just to get a feel for the scene. More renders to follow!