3D Character 3D Character AnimationAnimation

Character Animation Process

Disediakan oleh:

Noorazzahrawani Binti Abdul Rani (Mei 2013)

Character Animation ProcessCharacter Animation Process

1. Basics of Character Design2. Modeling Characters3. Texturing Characters4. Rigging Characters5. Animating

Character Animation ProcessCharacter Animation Process

1. Basics of Character Design Making choices;

a. Both artistic and technical. b. To know your character’s personality. c. Communicate this personality visually.When designing (artistic aspect);

Size, shape, color, texture, clothing and other att.

Well-designed character (technical aspect); easy to animate, making the animator’s job easier and more creative.

“When you pair a great design with a great personality, the results can be wonderful.”

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

1. Approaching Design as an Artist2. Design Styles3. Designing a Character4. Finalizing Your Design

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

1. Approaching Design as an Artist• The Creative Process• Technical Considerations• Using Reference• Refining Your Design

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

The Creative Process• Always starts with creative inspiration,

then refined and developed into a full character design.

• … a drawing or sculpture that describes the character in detail so it can be modeled digitally in 3D.

• Avoid criticizing your work during the creative process. Critique is important, but should happen during revision, not creation.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

The Creative Process

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

The Creative Process

Rough Sketch and Quick DrawRough Sketch and Quick Draw

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

The Creative Process

Action PosesAction Poses

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Technical Considerations• As you design, keep technical considerations in mind.

Such; - specific number of poly - adding details for realistic look will create additional work, increasing production budget and extending schedule.• A solid understanding of the technical issues involved

in 3D animation is gained through experience.• Ask a lot of questions of more experienced animators.• For your own initial projects, it’s best to keep your

designs simple so you don’t get bogged down in technical problems.

• Example: Simple hair took a few minutes to render. Clothing can be another big technical challenge.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Using Reference• Nature or look at other design, art and

film for inspiration.• If you’re designing a creature, you may

want to take a trip to the zoo to find animals to use as reference.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Using Reference

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Using Reference

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Once you hit upon a good idea, refine it into conceptual art, which then needs to be refined further into a final character design.

Redraw the character many times before it works for the production.This is also the pointwhere you need to askWhether the design isfeasible in terms of budget andTechnical requirements.

Refining Your Design

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Refining Your Design

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

2. Design Styles• Realistic Characters - … more difficult it will be to animate. - Audience will pick up on anything even slightly “off” about a realistic human character. - Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

• Stylized Characters

- Designs caricature reality

- Avoids some of the problems involved with realism. If a character doesn’t look completely photorealistic, the audience will be more willing to accept unrealistic movement and expression. (Example: Anime and Local Style)

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

2. Design Styles

- A lot of anime/manga has a standardized style of drawing based around simple lines with very little detail. If you pursue this type of illustration you should practise conveying ideas with minimum of pencil work, restricted to clear outlines. Even the shading, added at the colour stage, should be

simple.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

3. Designing a Character• Head and Body Proportions• Faces• Hands• Segmenting Characters

- Mesh deformation is always a little problematic and can be resource-intensive, so sometimes breaking your character into manageable parts can simplify the rigging and animation process.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

3. Designing a Character

- When creating alien creatures it is important to establish a sense of scale. The most effective method is to place them next to one of the principal characters. Simple sketches will be sufficient to act as a reminder.

- Once the ideas are down on paper, the details have to be worked on. Drawings should be made from as many angles as possible, with a minimum of front and profile views.

- Draw lots of expression that are appropriate for the character.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

3. Designing a Character

2D Model Sheet

-Model sheet shows the character from different angles to show his proportion. -Exaggeration, both under-and over-, is a standard method used by cartoonists and animators to add personality to their creations.-Turnaround was especially useful when the character was converted to 3D.-Side views are important in creating a clear impression of the character’s appearance.

BackBack FrontFront Side/ProfileSide/Profile

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

4. Finalizing Your Design

• When creating drawings for modeling, you need to make sure they don’t cheat and are accurate to 3D. If not, translating that to 3D can be difficult.

• To model, need at least two orthographic views: side and front, can be created using drawings, sculptures or photographs.

• Side and front views of a character must line up precisely once they’re scanned into the pc.

• Top and back views can also be helpful for some characters.

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

4. Finalizing Your Design

LeftLeft FrontFront

Leg Leg DetailDetailss

Hand Hand DetailDetailss

Pose (Turnaround)Pose (Turnaround)

Basics of Character DesignBasics of Character Design

Exercise 1 In this exercise, you get to design a simple character.

Take a pencil and paper, and sketch out some character designs that you might want to model. These designs should focus on the outward appearance of the character and its proportions, and whether the character is small, large, skinny, fat and so on.

Once you have a number of designs, look carefully at each character and think of how it might be constructed in your chosen software. Since you are just getting started, these issues may not be readily apparent. Your design may change as you learn more about how to build characters. Find a design that you like, and create a set of technical drawings or photographs to get your character ready for the modeling process.

* Sketch final design of your character in the model sheet

Modeling CharactersModeling Characters

1. Construct the Character using; surface types:

• Polygon modelling• Plane modelling• Edgeloops modelling technique

2. Creating Characters• Anatomy• Flexibility• Facial Modeling• Final Assembly

3. Segmenting character Many characters are built using a

single mesh. Although this is natural way to create a character, it forces you to deform every part of the mesh when you animate the character.

3. Segmenting character

Mesh deformation is always a little problematic and can be resource-intensive, so sometimes breaking your character into manageable parts can simplify the rigging and animation process. It’s very easy to design collars, clothing, and other accessories to help hide seams for your characters.

3. Segmenting character

3. Segmenting character

3. Segmenting characterSome characters are designed from

the ground up as segmented characters. A character such as a robot would actually be built with body parts as individual objects and might not even need mesh deformation at the joints. This makes the setup and rigging of the character very straightforward.

Exercise 2: In this exercise, you can start modeling using box. Box

suggested height is 3 segments, width is 3 segments and length is 3 segments. Convert the box into editablePoly object. Apply modifier Symmetry to have other half of the box is being affected when you model the other half.

Then you can proceed by extruding hand, leg and head using Extrude, Cut, Connect and Weld tools. As you model the human body (by extruding, cutting, connecting and welding), making sure all horizontal and vertical edges are straight. Add more edgeloops around maximum deformation area of the body or to get details of the body parts. * For head, you can model it as a separated part then attach it to the body or extrude from the body.

After that, you can apply modifier turbosmooth to see the human body mesh become smooth to get the best form of human body.

Poly Modeling Poly Modeling

Objects and Sub-Objects:

EditablePoly in 3ds Max

Cloth ModellingCloth Modelling

ReferencesReferences

Maestri, G. Digital Character Animation 3. 2006, New Riders. Berkeley.

Patmore, C. Character Design Studio. 2005, Page One Publishing Private Limited. Singapore.