Project Maiko: Understanding Outfit Details and Weights

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Project Maiko: Understanding Outfit Details and Weights

Now that we have a base mesh for our bodysuit, we can start detailing. This post is not about how to use Blender's tools to build shapes, as that is already covered by many modeling tutorials (although if people ask, I will write about it). It is also not a walkthrough of building any specific item. This post breaks down the vertex weighting issues related to mesh complexity, detail construction style, and flexibility. This information will hopefully help you construct your details in a way that will be easy to work with when setting up your vertex weights.

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Project Maiko: Creating the Base Bodysuit

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Project Maiko: Creating the Base Bodysuit

I have shared what I know about using MakeHuman to create bodies. Now, I will go over the creation of Maiko's outfit. The modeling techniques used were not particularly complex, and there are many tutorials out there that explain how to use Blender's tools to create shapes. I am going to write about the less covered, and more tedious issues of constructing decent topology, and using vertex weights to rig your outfit.

NOTE: This article contains images of uncovered anatomically correct 3D female bodies. It may not be considered appropriate in some work or school settings.

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MakeHuman Starting Tips

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MakeHuman Starting Tips

For those of you who have not tried it yet, MakeHuman is a lot like the character creators you see at the beginnings of most modern big budget games—think Saints Row 3 or Skyrim. You use sliders to adjust the traits and proportions of your character and have fine control over many features. Except that MakeHuman gives you a rigged character with an incredible level of anatomical accuracy ready to export in the format of your choice (I use Blender, but it supports most common file formats.) And it's open source and free. For detailed information on all the excellent things MakeHuman can do, check out their site: MakeHuman.org

In this post, I share some of the things I wish someone had told me when I started using MakeHuman.

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Project Maiko: Overview

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Project Maiko: Overview

For my first major project, I chose to experiment with a generic anime girl. The subject matter has a huge amount of references and visual memes for easy concepting and allows for diverse styles. We'll call her Maiko.

Below is a summary of the techniques used in Maiko's creation. I will be writing a post about each aspect and linking to relevant tutorials.

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