Here’s a new character I’ve started working on for an animation sequence inspired by the Elysiun animation challenge. It may or may not get finished in time for the challenge, but I do intend to finish it anyway
I have a story in mind that follows the challenge theme (“gift of flight”), where this character receives a gift involving the concept of flight and then puts it to good use.
I modelled him completely in 2.35, and I must say I am really enjoying the new editing features. Thanks Ton et al for all the new goodies!
Robertt you amaze me… modelling & rigging & animating a completely new mesh for the animation challenge. The work so far is great I can’t wait to see the final anim.
Raseri: Thanks! The model started out very toonish indeed. I’ll probably keep it mostly that way given the type of animation look I’m going for here The model has changed a little. I’ll post an update below.
emk: Thanks so much emk! The deadline is closer than I had hoped for, so we’ll see how much can get done between now and then.
basse: Good eyes basse Yes, the mouth area had some issues in the earlier form, so I spent some time this morning reworking that area and testing it with some RVKs. Seems to deform pretty well for the limited speaking I have in mind for this character, although he’ll not be speaking much in the animation
Wu: The Incredibles was a great movie, and, although this character isn’t based on that, something near the quality of animation in that film is something I would like to reach in this piece (asking way too much I know, but I do like to challenge myself :D) – this is a long term goal, since I probably won’t even finish in time for the deadline considering the multiple scenes I have in mind for this short.
And now for an update:
Gave him eyes, a shirt, started marking off material regions, cleaned up the mesh too. Next will be the rig.
There are two other characters in this short, his mother and father. The scene will probably start out in the living room on Christmas morning.
It sounds like it’ll be a great animation, and the model looks awesome! If you have something by Thursday, even just a few test renders, definitely submit it to the animation contest cuz we’d all love to see it.
looks cool man,…how come you did away with the gigantic eyeballs? i kind of liked them grossly oversized. as a cartoon teacher of mine once said, when doing toons, you really want to be over the top, whacky, zany etc. crAAAZY!
mikejedw: Thanks so much It might just end up being a test animation but I’ll see what can be done over the next few days.
Modron: Thank you very much Modron. I started out wanting them huge, really exaggerated, but as often happens when tweaking a mesh the thing took a life of its own If this character works out well I will be likely using it in another short.
NQE1: Thanks! I think the eyes seem about right (in the update below) for the slightly cartoonish proportions I wanted for this character --or rather, as I was saying to Modron in so many words, what this character seemed to want for itself ;).
Well it’s about time for another update:
This isn’t going so fast All procedural materials including the eyes. Materials are very early and basic and will be revisited for sure. Materials will be kept fairly basic though. Still have to make the rig and then his parents…
most impressive,
only crit would be the eyes, one looks larger, and they also seem a little uneven,
but other then that it looks great, are you also going to model the mom and dad characters
look forward to the animation, i will be sure to download the divx codec
@ner, yes hair of that quality would indeed be sweet I don’t have time to try something like that in the couple of days left though. I’ll be happy if I can squeak out a test animation, but this will continue past the challenge
Gabio: In certain rigs I use very small intermediary bones at pivot joints. I find this helps for IK purposes and to produce more gradual deformations around areas such as elbows, etc. I did assign vertex groups from closest bones.
Yes, the mouth area had some issues in the earlier form, so I spent some time this morning reworking that area and testing it with some RVKs. Seems to deform pretty well for the limited speaking I have in mind for this character, although he’ll not be speaking much in the animation 
All procedural materials including the eyes. Materials are very early and basic and will be revisited for sure. Materials will be kept fairly basic though. Still have to make the rig and then his parents…
