Character Animation by Will

In the photo above, you can see a bit of his workflow. Notice the thumbnails sketches in front of him he is using to inform his 3D modelling.
You can also see the bone rigging he has done, and earlier today I was watching him do some animation examples. We talked about the way a character like this might move – would it be a side to side shuffle? Or perhaps more of a hopping motion?

Character Meshes – weight applied

To get the motion realistic, Will has to apply weight to the meshes that make up the character, and rig the bones with the right kinetics. The process is a bit time consuming upfront, but when it is done he will be able to do walk-cycles and have the character jump and be expressive through his movement.

Character Sheet – various poses

It is one of the great pleasures of working at Oddly seeing talented people like Will pursuing their craft with such interesting projects. I also overheard Will talking with Ian about bringing the final character into Unity 3D for use in a mini-game. Great to see one creative idea spark another!