Week Nine

Once the torso, legs, arms, head and facial features had been built the next stage was to rig the character. To do this the group decided the best method would be to skin and bone each character so we can move their limbs from their joints so all body parts move realistically.

We had several teething problems using this method. Both members of the group have not used this particular tool previously having only used 3DS Max to create static images. The most prominent difficulty was the characters bodies pinched terribly when we tried to sit them down or animate their limbs.

Due to their cartoon appearance, the characters moved in an inhuman fashion and this caused the deformation seen in this pink render of the file. To solve this problem we decided to motion tween the characters from one position to the next.
To do this we had to clone the original upstanding image and position the vertexes to create the shape we wanted. An example of the would be the change between sitting on the sofa with bored expressions, the change to anticipation in their faces and being drawn into the television by the exciting and magical YMCA advert.



This process worked incredibly well and although it was time consuming the end result was almost perfect movement in our characters. There was no pinching like there was when we skinned and boned our characters and the movements flowed smoothly from one to the next.