"Making
A Toon Character Called 'Geoff' & his Rig" by "Tom
Greenway"
This
is a tutorial which covers the basics of modeling
and rigging a toon character. It doesn't go
into much detail and it is definitely the
quick and easy method for fast results. It's
for the intermediate user and assumes knowledge
of edit mesh editing and the 'modifier stack'
Every
aspect in this tutorial could have at least
a whole chapter written about it so please
excuse me for 'skimming the surface' a little.
The
technique is 'box modeling' with subdivisions.
The subdivisions come from the meshsmooth modifier
set to NURMS
Here
you can see the subdivided model under the low-poly
box cage
All
the modeling is done at the low-poly level (Edit
mesh in the stack and then use sub-object) but
by turning on the 'show end result' you can
see the meshsmoothed model take form at the
same time.
The
bulk of the model is created by extruding faces
down through the neck, body and limbs in sub-object
polygon mode
Come
out of sub-object for a moment to see the progress
Back
in into sub-object vertex mode to tweak the
form a little. Here soft selection in turned
on as well to help shape the model
Quickly
added in some eyes (a smaller sphere with a
larger one outside with slice turned on to form
lids)
Back
in sub-object polygon and turn on the slice
plane to divide the set of front polygons into
two and give another row of vertices to work
with and to make the neck 5 sided.
Slicing
the polygons here also, so the limbs have 5
sides to them (avoid the cube look with 4 sides)
Into
sub-object vertex to scale in certain parts
and refine the overall form.
I
have now decided to work with half the model
and clone a mirror duplicate over which is set
to reference. This side will then update automatically.
I have detached the head as I have modeled it
in a non symmetrical manner already for a more
quirky look.
Ahem,
for a while here I forgot to take screen grabs
and you can now see he suddenly has legs and
is welded back together but the remainder of
the model was created with the same technique
and refined in sub-object vertex mode. Then
the central points were welded in vertex mode
also.
This
stage shows the creation of the morph targets.
I want a simple set of three (hence the 3
clones) and I recommend you make them at the
low-poly edit mesh stage in the stack also.
Edit
which ever bits you want. As a biped skeleton
will control most of my models movements I
am only using them to adjust the mouth and
ears. I make the three 'mouth big' 'mouth
small' and 'ears back' and adjust the vertices
accordingly.
Add
the morpher modifier to the stack. Make sure
it is below the meshsmooth as you should have
created your morph targets at the low poly
level.
Load
in the targets and start playing with the
sliders ASAP ;)
As
I mentioned before the eyelids are just a sphere
with slice turned on. This slice value can then
be animated for the blinking action.
A
very simple texture is added to give the eyes
a direction (always usefull!).
Then
a 'look at' rotation controller is applied
to each (in the animation tab > assign
controller > rotation > look at) and
a dummy is created and set as the target for
both.
Again
as soon as it is set, start playing again,
making him go cross eyed etc.
Aha.
.the good old 'biped' (found under create
tab > systems > biped)
Once
created In the animation tab go into figure
mode (click the man symbol) and then scale
each section of the biped to match you model
as close as possible. I also went into the
structure roll-out and set the neck links
to 3 and the finger and toe links to 1.
3DTotal
Advertisement - We need your support!
As
well as you tutorial hungry people eating through a terabit of bandwidth each
month we also have many additional staff and running costs involved in creating
these free pages. We want to continue bringing you many free tutorials and resources
everyday, so PLEASE check out our products and amazon affiliate schemes via the
above banners. Many thanks!
Once
the biped 'fits' your character's mesh then
you need to select him and apply the 'physique'
modifier.
Again
apply this under the meshsmooth. This is very
important as you will see in a minute
Then
click the attach to node button and select
the biped's pelvis.
Up
pops the 'physique initialization' window.
This next step is an important time saver
if your after quick results and cuts out almost
the entire envelope and weighting process.
By
setting the blending to 'no blending' you
are choosing the most basic mode to deform
your character but as you have applied this
modifier to the box model the meshsmooth automatically
blends the the higher poly mesh between the
joints and has a similar effect to the falloff
of envelopes.
You
will still have to spend a few minutes adjusting
and assigning some of the points to the correct
parts of the biped. Usually these are toes and
fingers and making the head ridged.
A
quick first test shows some finger points have
been assigned to the head ?!
A
second quick test (by loading in a biped footstep
file) shows some arm points are incorrect
and it appears to squash this limb.
Another
quick fix and he's ready to go, it really
only takes a few minutes when you have had
a bit of practice.
It
is not the most professional set up I know
but it has always worked well for me giving
me time to concentrate on other areas. You
can see how well it deforms by clicking the
animation link at the bottom.
Before
the first render I add a standard 3 point light
set up to my scene
Play
around with it for a few minutes more until
a satisfactory look is achieved.
Click
opposite to download a short animation test
and click here to down
load the max file
Above
is the render form the first animation test
(a pre-made biped 'ballet' file). Overall its
a good way to set up a project especially if
you want to spend a lot of time animating and
refining your work cos it gets you off to a
flying start. I personal think there's nothing
worse that spending a whole week adjusting envelopes
but every project is different and I admit for
some it is necessary.
