WIP - Title still unknown

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:32 pm

Well, this started out as an experiment. How easy is it to use control bones to animate a character? So I thought of a character with many legs, a caterpillar. But, I have to think about a story around this character.

I haven't rigged my character yes, because I first want to know how the look and feel of the character was without bone animation.

I'm sorry for the large file size, but I've really tried to compress this animated GIF to as small a size as possible, without compromising the colors too much.

Next task, rigging the character and make it walk like a caterpillar.

Oh, I know a caterpillar doesn't have any legs, but what the hey, it's cartoon animation, and I can make up my own animals.

ulrik · Post by **ulrik** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:56 pm

It's looking nice, your caterpillar, I wish you good luck in rigging this little friend and I'm looking forward to hear and see how everything goes.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 3:25 pm

Looks good! And caterpillers have hair. That would look nice on him but would cause you more work.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:28 pm

@J. Baker: I like K.I.S.S.

Here's a fly I designed in a similar style.

These creatures should be able to utter sounds and eat things, so I made sure that is possible.

Edit: Here is a kind of slug I created:

bupaje · Post by **bupaje** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:19 pm

Looks good Rasheed. Maybe the story can be "Catepillar Shoes" That would be a good sale.

CartoonM!ke · Post by **CartoonM!ke** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:41 pm

Really nice character designs.

Do you mean Centipede/Millipede instead of caterpillar? If there was some way to do a "Lagging" constraint for the bones it would make things easy.

I examined a movie of a centipede walk cycle (don't remember where I saw it) for a character that was half Humanoid and half Centipede (like a centaur). It seems that the walk is like a 'wave' in a football stadium.

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:43 pm

I don't know about that. Animating all those shoes. And what if one of the laces came untied, and the poor thing stumbled over its own legs...

Here's the rigged version of the "caterpillar" (sorry again for the large file size):

Those proboscises on the top of the head are surely keeping the critter alive.

CartoonM!ke · Post by **CartoonM!ke** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:11 pm

Nice animation!

But, what if the guy uses shoes that have velcro fasteners?

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:52 pm

That might work...

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:52 am

I did some redesign on the fly.

Now I only have to make him fly, walk and talk...

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:32 am

Wow Rasheed!
I left one day (evening) the forum review and you draw almost a little story!!!!

Nice designs and animations.
I like the last drawing. That fly with his (her?) mother looks lovely!!
All the characters are blaming for action!!!

Suggestion: carterpilar legs don't move all synchronized, they move making "waves" of steps groups that move from front to back.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:08 am

Genete wrote:Suggestion: carterpilar legs don't move all synchronized, they move making "waves" of steps groups that move from front to back.

Yeah, I have to make it more believable. Therefore, I should work more on the rigging, because those motions should be easy to automate with bones. Perhaps I should whip up a layer script to help me. For instance, offset the movement of the next leg by one frame.

The other problem that I'm having is that if you add branches to a bone, inverse kinematics doesn't work anymore for any child bones down the bone chain. This means I have to use separate bones for the legs and bind them to the segment bones with a layer script, so I get IK working again.

Both properties have to be in the same layer script, and I must use a workaround, because it is not yet possible to retrieve bone names directly with a script. I have to get the bone names from the Moho file itself. Ah well, it never hurts to experiment and share my findings with others.

Edit: Oops, no workaround needed, because bone names can be retrieved and set through bone:Name() and bone:SetName(). I had that dynamic shape script stuck in my mind.