Syd

hey everyone! so I’m currently working on a cartoon version of my cat. his name is Syd.


he’s still a WIP of course, but his form is almost done. i was hoping to animate him. i’m just not sure if i should use just armature bones, or shape keys. anyone have any recommendations or tutorials?

I’m sure glad that is NOT a photo realistic image of your cat!!!

lol, me too! i’d be a little creeped out to see this thing walking around my house!

a bit of an update:


gave him better eyes and some paw pads. tweaked the mesh a bit.

working on shape keys for his face:


Nice expression.

thanks sunnyfield!

resurrecting ol’ Syd. going to try out an animation. right now, playing with different compositor filters for fun. :slight_smile:


Shape keys would be best for the face, but an armature is necessary for limbs. I’ve tried rigging animal limbs with shape keys before, it just doesn’t work. I like your idea so far.

@ Owldude - thanks! he’s actually already rigged. shape keys and mesh deform mod on the face, very simple armature for the rest of the body. i just need to figure out how to create a proper walk cycle. :slight_smile:

It’s looking good swirlypillow!

I am too a cat fan!

Place57 you look a little like Philippe Starck!

a quick animation of Syd standin’ around chillin’.

[video]http://vimeo.com/user6407674/sydjustchillin[/video]

Cool cat!

But is something strange going on with the texture.
Maybe you set the vector to generated in the uv settings…

@ Utopia780 - thanks for the comments! the “texture” is just a filter i applied in compositing to the render, for fun mostly. :slight_smile: it’s not an actual texture. i’ll be getting rid of it for the next animation though.

here he is without the filter:


Hey… where’s the tail?

it’s there! just can’t see it from this view.

Just fabulous… and my cat is agree with me :slight_smile:

So what does the cat do? What is the story for him? Is he cat like or mostly anthropomorphic?

@ Zakousky - thanks! i really appreciate the positive comments. :slight_smile:

@ sunnyfield - you know, i don’t know what he does. haven’t really thought about it. but! you have given me a wonderful idea, which is to take my Space Alien character and the Syd cat character and create a short story with them. he’s mostly anthropomorphic, but i plan to have him do some cat-like things to bridge the gap.

here’s an update - working on texturing UVs now. first time i’ve ever painted a UV texture for a character!