Alright, before I launch my new account, lets talk about my newest piece: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37964548/

So for those of you who dont know, I'm a technical artist in the game industry: which is a fancy way of saying I do all jobs technical related to a character: Mocap, animation tweaking, engine mechanic, and more specifically rigging, which is a fancy way of saying I put skeletons in characters so the animators can move, pose, and animate them. It is a very rich and rewarding job I very much enjoy.

That character you see there: she is fully rigged. I can pose her in any multitude of different ways. Rigging was the easy part: it only took me a week. To speed along the process I even created my own auto rigging tools so that If I wanted to I can go even faster than that. The best part is she is for the most part 90 percent joint driven (Aside from the hips, I still had to make corrective blends for that: nobody is perfect: but believe me I tried: I TRIED)

Most characters in games dont need complex rigs. You only need to plan a rig based around the following animations: Walk/run cycle, crouch, maybe a squat pose, sometimes a crawling pose, jump, and roll: alot of those basic character movements dont require a complicated rig. 3D porn on the otherhand is a different story...

See, 3D porn flips the entire rigging game on it's head. You now need a character that deforms perfectly from any of the thousands of erotic and dynamic poses that come with making a character look sexy from every angle. Let me give you an example of one of the hardest poses to rig, the "Slav Squat", this pose: https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.555.....,f8f8f8.u3.jpg

You see, joint based deformation will only get you so far. I've seen joint based solution to deformation problems around the hips: but most of them are highly technical approaches that would make a game engine scream at you. A character artist is given a poly and a texture size limit based on the character type. The main character of a game for example, the "Hero" if you will, gets the most polys and texture detail, then the villain and supporting characters, then the enemies get usually the least polys. It's the same rule with joints, the main character gets the most joints.

To successfully rig the "Slav Squat" you must build corrective blends (in maya they're refereed to as blend shapes in every other 3D application they are called Morph targets) The idea behind corrective shapes is you pose a character, you sculpt the geometry until the pose looks right, then you tie it to a trigger that activates the corrective blend when the character reaches the pose you sculpted for. Thats the most commonly accepted way to solve the problem with the hips: but it's not perfect. If you want those hip deformations to look nice you will have to sculpt ALOT of corrective blends to make those transitions nice and smooth: then on top of that, you cant really reuse corrective blends: not without alot of pain and tweaking, but you'll essentially be pouring all the work into the hips for just one character.

The reason for this is vertex order. Vertex order labels every single vertices on a character model, every corner of a triangle on a character model is considered a vertice, and if you fuck with that topology in anyway: extrude a new face, chop off the ears to add a different type of ear, or add new edge loops: the vertex order is now FUCKED and you will not be able to transfer the blend-shapes. simply put, you cant transfer blendshapes between characters unless the topology is EXACTLY the same, any tweaks and you risk losing the vertex order: it's not always the case: but it's a very dangerous gamble

Thats why joint only rigs are considered the holy grail of character rigging. It is very easy to transfer skin weights across characters and save yourself a metric asston of work on skinning: but most joint only approaches are used for films because joint based approaches usually involve more joints than a game engine can handle.

It takes alot of work to make a 3D character, not just rigging: but the art side as well. Then you factor in clothing, environments, other characters, different hair styles, ect. It's enough work for one person to make your head spin. I loved making this character: but it was SOOOOO much work and there is still so much more to do. I was originally going to surprise you all with an asston of 3D work on my new account: but honestly I think I should just take a note from cubebrush and do mostly drawing with the occasional 3D piece.

Rigging is considered fun to me, because I'm a masochist: but making a full 3D character is ALOT of work