I thought I'd share something I've been working on.  I've been working at a
hobby pace on the overall project for a while now.  Actually this beast has
a closet full of different smaller project to work out and this is just one
of the latest pieces: my intro into generating meshes.  If this were for
production, then the 100% hand code modality to generate model and rig
wouldn't be the most efficient, but as a hobby, nobody can say there's a
better way than whatever way the hobbiest pleases, and for me that's code
;)  It's got more of a scratch-built feel to it than by other methods.  I'm
keeping a record of my progress with some of my test renders, this being one
of them. Look at the shapes not the colors.  Teeth, even of a bighorned
dragon, are not normally supposed green - no key lime involved!

I'm using a lot of splines, although I'm not directly - I'm entering them as
arrays which can be mirrored/doubled, transformed, or otherwise tweeked
before macro-ing them into sometimes multiple splines. The lastest thing
I've added was a little more convienience in cashing multiple resolutions
of mesh-files without having to re-process when changing to a different
res.  I don't think I'll use this for soft bodies such as the lips. They'll
need regeneration for every movement anyway.

One of my rules is that everything be overlapping solid forms, so the meshes
should be watertight.  Each mesh has either 1) several latitude lines are
explicitely defined with longitude splines going from one pole to the other
passing through these control splines, or 2) the gums use certain
explicitely defined longitudinal splines which do not meet up at the poles,
and then cone-like endcaps are added.

For styling, I wanted the fierce yet mammalian canines and incisors, and big
flaring nostrils. The body looks big and lumbering but the wings will be
pretty good sized as well.  They are 5-digit and batlike wings while the
legs (there are 4 of them) have 4 toes each, one of which is opposed to the
others for grasping.  It's a composite beast like a griffin.

Charles

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