Generic Character For Animation

[titaniumdave]

Lots of reels have the ik joe model which is pretty much a bunch of blocks. Some have the lowman model which are primitives shaped alittle like body parts. So I guess you don't really need a fancy model if you can animate, thats what they're looking at anyways.

[maninflash]

It's really better if you come up with your OWN character and animate that for your reel and not use the free rigs available on the web like the BlueGuy. Even if you make two cubes with legs and a sphere for the head, it's better to be original.

I've heard that a lot of HR and the people who watch reels daily are sick of seeing the same characters over and over again in every tape and even if you have excelent animation going in your tape, the chances that your reel would pass the first Human Resource stage is slim.

There is a similar thread on CGChar:
http://cgchar.toonstruck.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2550&st=15

[Project813]

Thats what I was thinking as well...I definately want to use my own character (s).

[kevinw]

I don't necessarily agree. Yes original characters are very good to have. But if you're a good animator then I can't imagine you'd be turned down for using a free rig.

Perhaps if your entire reel is the same "free" character all the way through then it may not fly. Variety is never a bad thing.

Using your own characters definitely shows you know more about the software than just how to animate but if you're rig/character sucks then it won't help much.

Rigging up some boxes and spheres is OK for physical action but you'll also want to show emotion through facial animation and lip sync. Plus it doesn't take much work to parent some boxes together so I don't know how that really shows off any skill.

MOST IMPORTANT!

MAKE IT ENTERTAINING!

IF I HAVE TIME TO LOOK AT MY WATCH AND NOT MISS ANYTHING THEN IT'S PROBABLY TOO SLOW AND MOST LIKELY BORING


Anyway, just my opinion.

[maninflash]

I think kevin has a point, if you know enough rigging to rig a decent character, which is also original, then definitly do that! If you're not a good character rigger but are willing and have the time/money to learn, then do it. BUT, if you don't know anything about rigging, it may be better if you leave it alone and use free rigged characters, but then, work on your animation becasue it needs to be really outstanding. :)

[kevinw]

Examples can be found here:

http://cgchar.toonstruck.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1985&st=0

Lots of good rigs. Hell download all of them and do different animations with each. Some are better for facial/lip sync and some are setup nice for physical action.

I recommend lowman and generi.
(and you can set yourself apart by changing the color or even adding textures to generi (the blue guy)

Lowman rocks because he can be scaled and changed very easily to not look like the default. The new version even has a facial setup.

also check the archives at http://10secondclub.net/index.php There are more characters here (most are the same from the above link)

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