Looking for Armor rigging tutorials please

Akenaten

Hello everyone,

I've been scouring the web and these forums, for any tutorials so I can make armor and shields for my Daz Studio characters. Any nudge in the right direction would be most appreciated. Oh, I have modo and Hexagon, Blender and Lightwave to choose from. If any of those are best for what I need to do, please let me know. Thanks again for your time.

Wolf

edited to change title to something that makes more sense:)

Richard Haseltine

Any of those will work, though Lightwave and, I believe, Blender have the advantage that they know about morphs and will store them alongside the geometry and that they will let you edit the mesh without destroying the UVs. On the other hand Hexagon has nicer tools for creating UV mapping than the version of Lightwave I have (but there's nothing stopping you modelling in one and mapping in the other).

As for creating the armour, assuming it's going to be hard armour then you are probably going to be making each bone a separate piece of mesh so any tutorial on modelling armour should be useful - you wouldn't need to restrict yourself to those aimed at Poser/DS users.

wancow

Not sure about tutorials, but I often will look at someone else's work to get a clue what to do.

There is this:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/28494/View/11/Poser/Stormtrooper-Armor

If I were trying to do what you're doing, I'd look at how this person did this...

So far as modelling: I learned one piece of software and stuck with that. It makes it second nature. Hexagon has a tonne of fantastic tutorials out there in Video. That would be my choice, but that's a matter of personal preference and comfort. You use what it is that makes you more productive.

Hell, there are a couple of professional modellers who use Wings3D!

Akenaten

Thanks all, much appreciated. I actually do know how to make the armor and props, I guess what I meant to ask is, how do I get the shoulder armor to stick to the character and even use it with models like Michael? I guess I might be looking for a prop or clothing rigging tutorial. Sorry for the confusion. Thanks again:)

Wolf

wancow

Uhg... Depends on which program you're using, actually. There's a special way to rig in DAZ Studio which allows you to harden surfaces. I don't know how to do it, but I know it can be done. The Bad Guy for Genesis has the gun holster hardened so it doesn't bend, but does collide. There's a time lapse video on how that was done, but I found it impossible to follow, but that's me. I don't have that link handy, but perhaps someone else does.