[anticz]

I read an article the other day that talked about how difficult it is to construct a functional bird wing in CG. So I decided to play with it a little to see if I could build one. This is what I came up with. Took a little over a day to build and setup the wing and 20 minutes or so to animate. This isn't complete. I still have to add a secondary control layer to smooth out the feathers and give the whole structure some flex, but any comments or suggestions on how to improve this would be a great help.

Here's the wing structure.


And here's the animation (471 kb)
http://www.anticz.com/images/OtherWeirdness/wing.mpg

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Mike B. - Supervising Janitor
anticz.com
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[This message has been edited by anticz (edited January 13, 2001).]

[Brain]

Wow! That's impressive! You gonna do anything with it, like make a full bird and a small animation, or is this just to sooth curiosity?

Keep at it!

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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/

[McSteed]

F'ing cool man.

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Chris the Great
www.mcsteed.com

[Ben Barker]

Are you talking about the interview with that Blizzard artist?
The feather sliding is nice. It cause some intersection weirdness at the elbow when the wing folds up, but I bet with a feather material that wouldn't matter.
Do feathers stick up in the air like that at the elbow when the wing is folded? I'm not sure. I don't think so though. When birds are sitting there, with their wings folded, they look really sleek.
Also, when the wing beats I would exaggerate the anticipation before the downward motion. For instance, make the humerous and forearm raised farther up, and have the wrist section bent downward, making the arm an upside down "U" shape. Maybe it's the angle, but it looks now like the wing comes out only slightly higher than horizontal then comes down too quickly, without the proper anticipation.
Again, I don't know if that happens in real life but it might look better for the purpose of animation.

[I suck at grammar... and let's face it, life.]


[This message has been edited by Ben Barker (edited January 13, 2001).]

[anticz]

Brain,
Thanks, just curious really. Maybe some of this will be useful or turn up in something in the future.

Ben Barker,
Thank's for the comments. This is a really early test. Far from finished or useable yet. Just theory really. Did the animation really quick to see if the rig was functioning properly. Can't remember where I saw the wing article. Think it was a back issue of cinefex. Thanks again for the sound comments. I'll be taking a closer look at how I'm flaying the feathers in the closed position.

Here's an updated version. Spent a few hours adding a secondary control layer to smooth out the feathers and take care of the interpenetration. Now I've got independant animation control for the chamber, torsion and bow of the wing. Here's anthoer quickie example of that stuff in operation. Any comments, crits or suggestions on how to improve this setup are greatly appreciated.

DIVX avi (21 kb)
http://www.anticz.com/images/OtherWeirdness/WingTestFlex.avi

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Mike B. - Supervising Janitor
anticz.com
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[-- Transcendent --]

That is just amazing !

I hate to ask this question - but what program did you use ? The boning system seems quite advanced - or did you use expressions for this ?

Just curious.

[shardik]

wow, can u mirror it when u are rendering?
i think it would be easier to critique if we had 2 wings going at once... very nice

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-matt

[FireWalker]

have you seen the lame movie vertical limit?

in the opening shot is a CG eagle that is just hideous. good example of how not to do it, i suppose.

seems like you got a nice working system.. now just a matter of nailing the speed and movement.

[Icannon]

that's really neat. nice work.

[Ben Barker]

That new one is awesome. Now all you need is the random flutter that happens on the tip feathers when the bird is gliding.
If it's a big bird, that is.

[anticz]

Transcendent,
Not that it matters but I used Max3. Setup is a combination of expressions and my own stuff (something in the order of 60 independat feather splays). Didn't take very long to rig this. Maybe I'll go back and finish this up some time.

shardik,
This is just a test for now. Want to make sure it all works before I spend time on the other side, but thanks for the comments.

Thank's a ton everyone for your feedback. I was hopeing maybe there'd be a couple bird people up here with a little more insight into how a wing functions in real life but this will do. Thanks again everyone!

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Mike B. - Supervising Janitor
anticz.com
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[napalm]

hey, first saw this on cg-char. Nice improvement on the latest version, it still seems to snap a bit too rigidly at the apex of the wing flap, you did a good job smoothing out the wing segments but i dont think it flows quite as well as it could, a bit of tweaking on the follow-through of the wing going back down would make it seem a bit more realistic; it may be "exaggerated" reality, but many times in art that is what our eyes believe to be true. can't wait to see the whole bird / textured feathers, you've really tackled a challenging problem quite well here.

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