Character Template for Animations

[giordi]

i think that this kind of char is good for beginner animator ! but for say something aboput the rig this shot it's not enough we need to know if it's animator friendly and also if it has a good deformation

[JaredTaylor]

Hi! This character is intended for beginning to learn animation so I'm glad you think so :)

I haven't made the rig, currently doing that now. I setup blendshapes for the eyes and eyebrows, 10 for the eyes, 5 for the brows.

http://i37.tinypic.com/21et0i.jpg

Incomplete rig + Eye blend shapes

http://i33.tinypic.com/258mmux.jpg

[JaredTaylor]

Rig is now ready for action!

http://i35.tinypic.com/2cshvg1.jpg

[Luxor3d]

I think it's quite ugly... and have basic rig, but a good animator can get a good things!

[JaredTaylor]

Well I added some stuff to the rig, like finger controls - can't believe I forgot them, and FK/IK switch for the arms.

Can you elaborate on the ugly part? I'd like to know what you'd recommend to change that.

[giordi]

it's look like good is it based on digital tutors dvd right? i think that you don't need so much stuff in a rig like that .. but you can add stretch for leg and arm

[JaredTaylor]

well spotted, that is a dt rig

i considered adding stretch, but decided that character didn't really need it

i've been animating with it most of the day and it's simple but effective

[Luxor3d]

I'm sorry Virtualistic, I didn't want to be offensive... this is just my opinion.
In any case, I don't like tapered hands and square feet... then I'd stand out a bit the difference between chest and pelvis. But I repeat, this is just my opinion ;)!!!

[Jeremydjutras]

I'd make the arms a little longer, but the hands much bigger! props for creating your own rig though, a knowledge of rigging could help you find an animation gig.

[dbalmert]

Problems with the Rig:

The hand controllers are too small. An animator need to grab and move the hands a lot in almost every scene, so having the wrist controller be so subtle is not useful.

The blend shapes on the first row don't read really well. The thing about the eye you made is that it can't take the teardrop shapes and still read well. The asian one still reads, but be careful any time you start deforming the eye with a simple rig. Stick to Wide/Narrow, Stretched/ Compressed, and maybe Curved/Straight.

Notice these are all 1 dimensional things and could easily be controlled independently by sliders on your facial control.

Also, (and I made this mistake too on my first rig) -make sure the legs aren't spread too far when initially posing/modeling the figure. It makes it easier to deal with and paint hip/upper leg deformations.

I did the DT rigging tutorial and it's very good, but it does a lot of things correctly without telling you. Their rigs were all in a particular stance well suited for weight painting, but they didn't elaborate on it.

EDIT - make sure you plan to animate this! Otherwise, you can ship this over to the rigging section of CGTalk and get some REAL feedback from the great guys and gals over there.

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