Hayley Mills - Journey in Modeling and Rigging
Since graduating Capilano University's 3D animation program in 2022, I've been working toward a job as a 3D modeler or rigger. This entry highlights the accomplishments I'm most proud of, so far!
My stand-out project for my final semester at Capilano University was this little doll named Siobhan. I wanted to model a character designed by someone else, as this is the role of modelers in the industry. A student in the 2D program made a design I fell in love with and gave me permission to adapt it. Everything from the sculpting and modeling through retopo, UVs, and texturing is my own.
A challenge of translating this 2D design to 3D was that she wasn't really intended to be a 3D model. This means certain choices had to be made. For instance, her skirt technically broke the rules of 3D space, and I decided it was more important that the skirt be accurate from the front than from the side.
Siobhan turned out to be pretty popular, and a rigging student decided they wanted to use her as a part of their final project as well. Another student had modeled an environment that went perfectly with her, and an instructor agreed to make her an idle animation. Between the character designer, myself, the environment modeler, the rigger, and the animator, Siobhan ended up part of a whole little pipeline! I believe this collaboration gave us experience that will be useful in the industry.
After graduating, I worked on some more models, one of which being my own interpretation of a character from the Pokemon franchise. I decided to take this character, "Ethan," a step further, and use him for a rigging project.
Though I focused on modeling in school, my good grades in rigging gave me a confidence boost. I decided to practice those skills, hoping to broaden my career opportunities and glean insight on what makes a model easier for the riggers to deal with. Modeling and rigging the same character was a great learning experience. I feel I have a clearer picture and can see things from different roles on the pipeline.
Ethan's first rig is a custom one, made from scratch with Maya's standard rigging tools:
A fellow graduate who'd been working in the industry recommended I try Advanced Skeleton as well, since certain studios had appreciated that she knew it. So Ethan became the subject of that project too! I believe rigging him with Advanced Skeleton gave me insight on what kind of controls, deformations, and weight painting situations I might need to work with, if I land a job as a rigger. I was able to examine how my design choices and topology worked with an Advanced Skeleton rig, and compare it to the custom rig. This rig worked great with his design, for both body poses and facial expressions:
I'm applying to studios as both a character modeler and a rigger, and I'm excited to see where either job might take me! At the moment I am most passionate about character sculpting and modeling. We were often told by instructors that there's no telling where you'll end up, and what job you'll end up preferring years down the road. As a graduate of both the 2D and 3D programs at Cap, this is easy for me to understand. But I believe an industry career is one worth working toward, and the uncertainty is part of what makes it interesting. I'm open to the possibilities, and can't wait to see where I end up!
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