Animated Environments

Character Creation & Animation

The moment you've all been waiting for. While it seems like a daunting task, developing a character isn't actually all that hard. The first choice you have to make is what type of character you're making; realistic, or anamorphic (are the proportions going to be correct, or out of proportion). The next decision, what type of character will it be; humanoid, plant, rock, gopher (Allan?).

As with most planning in digital art - the first thing you need to have is a front view and a side view of your character. This crucial step allows you to make reference images within the 3D modeling program of your choice. After that - the steps are easy, choose simple meshes and slowly add extrusions, carefully sewing your creation into a functional 3D mesh. After that, throw some bones in it, and begin the fun of animating it!

We will start by making a low poly-count character, not only because they're a bit easier to make than a more complex 3D character, but also because they'll render faster.

Assignment #11 - Creation of a walk cycle / movement cycle

Creation of a walk cycle using >>>THIS RIG<<<

In order to be successful I recommend watching the tutorial in the youtube video below right. Walk cycles are

Further to that - this is what you are going to do to make your walk cycle. Don't worry that it's just 2D, the principles are almost identical.

Assignment #14 - Final Choice Project [for those interested in 3d for the capstone project]

Low PolyCount Character

To do this assignment you'll need the following resources:

The following reference pictures: Front View of Character and Side View of Character
You'll need to follow my brief introduction tutorial below: [note, scale Front_View_of_Character.PNG" to a scale of 5.5 when putting the image in as a reference image] before going on to do Williamson's Low Polycount video. Also, to add a reference image in blender 3.x you have to be in OBJECT MODE and ADD>IMAGE>REFERENCE (it's no longer docked in the tool shelf)

Follow this video to set up your blender file that will allow you to follow Jonathan Williamson's tutorial

Now follow the basics of this tutorial (at left). Bear in mind that this is using a quite out-of-date version of blender, but for what you will be doing, it won't matter.

Note: if you want to make your character a female instead of a male reduce the accentuation of the muscles in the shoulders/pectorals/neck/lateral arms and quadriceps and instead accentuate the hips and breasts. This is probably best done during the process - ask me if you would rather do that and I can help you at key moments when you're creating the wireframe.

Next Step: rig your objects and turn them into a scene.

Follow the video at right to throw an armature into your low-polycount person.

If you get stuck on how to paint vertices with weights try following this quickly - there's a lot of power in assigning vertices to vertex groups.

When you have rigged your character, include a background and have him/her complete a walk cycle.

include scene lights
include camera movements
include some CC music in the background

Google Sites

Report abuse