Creating the scene

The scene was kept relatively simple to reflect the design of the character. In this case a plane was used to create the floor or grass, and the background sky was created by changing the render environment setting to blue instead of black by default.

The additional trees on the stage we created using a cylinder for the bark and modified planes for the foliage, which is then further modified to poke upwards, creating a pine tree cartoon look.

Animating the props

Along with the biped, there is a certain level of animation put into the objects in the scene such as the reaction of the hats to his magic.

The first hat features the 'sprouting of wings' which in turn enable the ability to fly. this was done by simply crating two cartoon wing shapes using the line tool, converting them to an editable poly and using the symmetry modifier to create a 3d look..

These wings are then positioned on the hat and assigned a link constraint directly to the hat object so they will follow it's flow of movement on the stage. This saves a large amount of time as the wings would otherwise have to be animated to follow the path of the hat which in itself can be a daunting and usually messy task with many difficulties. the wings are also tilted 15 degrees every 5 frames to give the illusion of a flapping motion.

The second hat features a rocket-like take off directly off the stage. This was done using the 'SuperSpray' particle system and assigning a link constraint to the target hat.

Being new to this effect, I have found this tutorial invaluable in detailing how to create a simple version of this effect, which looks very similar to a smoke trail left behind by aeroplanes.

The tutorial can be found here SuperSpray Tutorial

To start, we select the SuperSpray from the particle system dropdown menu. This allows us to click and drag the effect onto the stage. Next a Hose preset is loaded which allows us to create a fluid spray effect, which can be seen by playing the first 100 frames of the scene. Relevant particle settings were changed such as the 'Use rate' which in this case i have decided to use 100 particles per frame.



Next, a material needs to be added to the spray to create a smoke effect. This was done by assigning a diffuse color under the maps rollout and selecting the particle age preset, followed by color adjustments. We then add a preset to the 'Opacity' map and use the 'noise' and 'gradient' settings. With some further adjustments the material is assigned to the particle emitter and the results can be seen here..

This video shows the original smoke testing after assigning the material.

To create the effect of the hat launching off the stage, the particle emitter is positioned directly under the hat and the emission settings altered to reflect it's current time on the timeline. The use of a link constraint allows the emitter to follow the hat's movement on stage but also makes the emitter shoot up faster than the hat!

To resolve this, I tweaked the settings under the 'Object Motion Inheritance' panel section on the emitter and reduces the Multiplier to -0.5 which stops the emitter shooting up through the hat..

Animating the Biped part3.

The final part of my animation, features the use of the last hat available for the character to perform a magic trick. At this point he is considerably reluctant to use magic and emphasizes this point by the expression on his face and hesitant body language.

Unfortunately, the character is not having the best of luck and the hat instead decides to float and place itself on top of the character's head, leaving the character embarrassed and fed up with the string of unsuccessful magic tricks he has attempted to perform.

Animating the Biped part2.

After experimenting with entrances and different starting positions, I decided that having the character already positioned appropriately on the stage allowed me to start animating some of his personality sooner rather than having to wait for him to get into position.

The animation is split into three parts:

1. The character is addressed by a narrator and asked about what he is going to do.
2. The character then begins performing different magic tricks.
3. By the end of the third magic trick, the character then decides magic may not be for him.
   

In order to give a good flow of movement, I thought about how many frames I would require and the rate at which these frames were processed. In this case I have chosen to use 1800 frames with an fps setting of 30. This gives plenty of frame creation room on the timeline, including a comfortable speed to work with.

The character is first seen viewing his surroundings, his personality and movement suggest he has a curious nature about him. He is then greeted by a narrator who asks him about his task today and suggest how he could perform them. The idea behind the narrator, came from the popular children's animated programme, 'Pocoyo' where the narrator directs interacts with the characters.



The character then discovers the hats on the ground before him and in preparation for some magic tricks he reaches and pulls a magic wand from his garments. Next he will recite a simple line of magic words and attempt to conjure something out from the hat.. instead the hat sprouts wings and begins fluttering around and off from camera view.



The character then follows the position of the escaping hat using eye and body movements, ending with a confused expression and look towards the audience. He then shrugs, thinking this event could just be a simple coincidence and proceeds to try his luck on the next hat.



Here he focuses his attention on the second hat by looking at it directly and adjusting his body to face the new object, which he then uses his magic wand to lift and move the item in front of him. Again he attempts to cast a magic spell, though as the audience we don't know the nature of his intentions in terms of the character's desired outcome from the spell, possibly he would like flowers to appear from the hat.



For the second mishap, the hat instead shoots away like a rocket off the scene view, causing the character to appear confused and slightly scared at the fact none of his magic tricks are going to his plan.

Animating the Biped part1.

With the model complete, a Physique modifier is added to bind the mesh and bones for animation. This stage was much easier to work with due to the smaller surface area in some places. The joints can now move in a more fluid motion with minor mesh tearing.




The first part of my animation will be a form on introducing to the character, possibly having him poke his head from one side of the screen and walking on to the stage to stand behind a hat on the floor, ready to perform his first magic trick.




This example just shows a simple walk on animation of the biped appearing on the stage and taking position ready for the next task.

Character Body Design part4.

In order to create a workable mesh for my character I will need to create a more refined version of the meshes I have created so far. In addition to this I will also be removing the underlying body model due to further issues with mesh tearing and displacement.



I decided to follow the same production pattern as before due to the ability to create a low-poly mesh to wrap around the biped and the fact it is faster to model.



As you can see here, once the front and back are aligned and the shapes begin to wrap around the biped, the vertices are welded together. This is similar to the way, the cloth modifier works, without welding at vertices, meshes are wrapped around target objects.



The whole reason behind modelling a new version of the robe was to refine the overall shape, trimming the edges and making the sleeves shorter at the joint were of utmost importance to ensure a cleaner end result when animating.



To finish off, I added some small details to the robe such as a belt and some other minor shape adjustments, so far I am very pleased with the look!

Character Body Design part3.

With a model for the character created I could now begin animating the biped for my first scene.

Before the biped can be animated however, the mesh must first be attached to the bones. This requires the use of the 'skin' modifier to attach mesh and bone and begin animating. However, for unknown reasons, the skin modifier would not attach the bones to the mesh and consequently, the mesh would not be affected by movement of the biped!

Due to this, I have been forced to use an alternative method and turn to the 'Physique' modifier which is also used to perform the same task. the major difference between the skin and Physique modifiers is the fact that the later focuses more of envelope 'weight-editing' as opposed to vertex weighting, which is ultimately more precise.



The Physique tool works by creating a circuit of 'veins' throughout the biped which can be edited to perfect it's weighting affect on the surrounding model surfaces. Each section features a selectable envelope which is used to adjust the weight settings and area coverage. The trick with this, is getting the correct shape from the envelope, otherwise too much or not enough surfaces are affected correctly to prevent mesh-tearing..



So far I have been unable to produce a clean flow of motion using the current model design, this is down to the model being too bulky, which also has caused issues with setting the Physique envelopes correctly to prevent this.

Character Body Design part2.

To create the character's robe, I used the technique of the garment maker method and created a flat editable poly to fit the character's body shape using the 'Line' tool..



I then duplicated this using the 'symmetry' modifier to create the back section of the robe. Next I positioned both the front and back faces of the robe to fit neatly either side of the model, leaving a small gap between the model and the robe.



The next stage was to close the gaps between the two sides of the editable poly. This was done by simply selecting to opposite edges and using the 'bridge' tool to create a polygon between them. Once this was done, I continued to make small adjustments over the entire robe shape to create a more realistic appearance..



Once I was happy with the look, I added a 'turbo-smooth' modifier and began adding some minor details to the robe such as a rope belt which can be seen in the screenshot above. At this stage I also imported the wizard hat I had made previously and scaled the model to fit the character..

Character Body Design part1.

This stage of development has so far presented numerous problems with the appearance of my character. My design includes the possibility of using the 'cloth' modifier to simulate a more realistic robe for my character to wear but has so far been difficult to get the desired effect, thus taking my ideas back to the drawing board.

My next attempt started by first creating a rough biped shape and placing this inside a rapidly sculpted model which reflects the biped's shape..

A copy of the head is carefully positioned with the body, however due to conflicts with the existing 'morpher' tool state, the head can not be attached to the body. Following this, I then used to 'line' tool to draw the outline for the intended robe design which will sit over the body. This technique is common practice in preparation for creating garments using the garment and cloth modifiers. However previous experiments using this technique proved, time-consuming with no guarantee of a clean finish at the end..



For this experiment, I created a simple under-model for the body and created a robe-shaped garment using the garment and cloth modifiers. As you can see here, there are numerous cracks in the mesh which consequently give a very messy look. Unfortunately, I underestimated the size requirements of the model which caused further issues but any attempt at changing the mesh without removing the garments would give many undesired effects. For this reason, along with the time needed to accurately test and adjust a suitable mesh shape, I decided to take an alternative approach.