Project 6 : Character Modeling

Date Assigned: Thursday, May 27
Rigged and Constrained Character: Thursday, June 3
Animation Due: Monday, June 7

Reading: Chapter 9, Section 10.6 (Kerlow)

This assignment will be your introduction to "rigging", or setting up a control structure to make a character easy to animate. In this assignment you will recieve only the geometry for the character(ErgoMan). It is your job to create a skeleton for the character(single chain) and to constrain to joints of the character to simulate realistic motion.

As you start thinking about your character and how it should move, use the eye for detail that you have been developing to study motion of people in the real world.

Getting started
To learn about the tools for building and animating characters, read Learning Alias v.8.5 and do the following tutorials:

Character Animation (pp. 359-368)
Lesson 20 (required)
Lesson 21 (required)
Lesson 22 (not required, do as needed)
Lesson 23 (not required, do as needed)
Lesson 24 (not required, do as needed).

These tutorials are more involved and will take more time to complete than the previous tutorials. Please make sure to start them early so the you leave pleanty of time to complete the project.

What to do

Build the character.

To complete the requirements for this project you must add the following features to the ergoman geometry given in the project6 setup.

Copy the setup file /home/cse458/data/proj6_setup into your home directory.
Construct a basic skeleton for the character. Think about how you want your character to move, and where the joints should be placed to create realistic humanoid motion.

Apply IK handles (single chain) to the character.

Set proper joint limits on your characters joints.

Add constraints to your character.

Create an animation of your choice. Once you have your character complete and it moves the way you want it to, create an animation using your character. Use this animation to demostrate that your rigging was done properly. Some possible animations to think about could be a jump, a walk cycle, a run cycle, a push, a pull, or any other combination of actions that demostrates your creatures ability. Trying to animate your character is also a good method for determining what adjustments need to be made to easily allow someone else to animate this character.

(Optional) Create your own character The key here is coming up with a character that is interesting and expressive. Be creative! Think carefully about how the character moves and what the best way is to control it: what's the "root" of the hierarchy? Does it use deformable or rigid geometry? Think about how this type of character would move, and where you must place the joints to simulate this type of movement.

What we're looking for

The key is creating the skeleton and joints that would easily allow an animator to animate this character in a realistic manner with relative ease. What problems did you have with the ErgoMan in assignment 5. How did you change things to make him easier to manipule? We will examine the skeleton and IK handles of your character, and will look at how easy the character is the us to move. We will also take into consideration the type of animation you were able to create with this character.

Turn in

Monday, June 7, 10:30am (remember, it's finals week): Before the critique, create a group directory in the critique/character directory and place there the following:

The wire file with you fully constrained character in his rest pose.
A flipbook with a turntable (360 degree animation around the character) of your character in his rest position.
A flipbook with you animation.
(optional) A wire file with the character you created from scratch.