Kelly Gallagher
CPSC 808
Project #4
4/17/03

Model of Rip-'em-Off Dan



The purpose of this project is to create a character and rig the character so that it can be animated. In order to acomplish this, I used Maya's IK bones with a smooth-skin binding to my geometry. I was able to acheive some small success but there is still a lot about the using the bones that I don't quite have a handle on (no pun intended).

The Character
Danforth W. Tusque (a.k.a. Rip-'Em-Off Dan) is an original character that I've been using in comics and animations for a long time. He is a crooked entrepreneur with a twisted sense of humor. He lives a charmed life in a strange cartoon world. For a small sample of his hijinks, check out my cartoons at www.alicemachine.org/suckerville

Modeling
The model is made entirely of polygon primitives that were shaped as coarse, low-poly objects and then smoothed. At first I attempted to model the character as a one continuous surface, but I was unable to. However, the arms and legs are continuous peices, which would improve the animation. This model features Dan in white slacks, an ugly golf shirt, and plain loafers.
dan from the front
dan from the side
dan from the back
dan's face (notice the bump-mapped skin)

Skeleton
The skeleton I created was fairly complex and had many joints and Ik handles. the feet are seperate and I attempted to make them so that the character could walk. Unfortunately I rigged the joints backwards in the feet. The characters feet would remain planted (until moved) if he walked, but it would be difficult to cause the feet to bend realisticly. Still the character's feet can be moved as easily and fully as a if rigged in a regular IK chain, and a stiff sort of walk would be easy to animate. There is an IK handle in each leg that controls from the base of the pelvis to the ankle. The handle is grouped with the foot so that moving the group causes the leg and foot to move realistally. In addition there is a handle which controls from the shoulder to the wrist. so that moving the arm realistically is also easy. Another handle controls from the neck to the top of the head for easy neck movement.
skeleton2.mb

Animation
The Character turned out to be difficult to animate. Though the motion appeared to be smooth as I moved the IK handles, when I began to key-frame the animation, problems started occuring. between keyframes, the limbs had a strange tendency to twist 360 degrees without prompting. The rotation graphs were very zig-zaggy for some reason. I tried to smooth it out the best I could, but mostly I just had to re-keyframe it a few times. Eventually I discovered that it was the extremities in the limbs normal range of motion that caused such anomalies. By keeping the animation relatively low-key, I was able to keep it smooth.
Click here for Quick-time movie
Click here for the whole thing in a maya binary