Influence | Mike Wazowski
My first character influence is Mike Wazowski from Disney’s Monsters Inc and Monsters University. The character is a short, head shaped monster with a large single eye ball. In the movie he has three different versions of his model, baby Mike, young/teen Mike and his more commonly recognised grown up look.
Influence | Sulley Sullivan
My second character of influence was Sulley from Disney’s Monsters Inc and Monsters University. I was fond of the technical marvel of Sulley’s hair or fur and how it looked so dynamic and real. My plan is to try and implement this hair and fur into the model.
Influence | Emmet Brickowski
I decided to have another character to animate and interact with my first character. I have previously modeled a Lego man figuring in 3DS Max and would love to incorporate and animate one very like the Lego Movie’s Emmet Brickowski.
Reference Drawing | Mike
For my reference material I put together an orthographic view of Mike to import into 3DS Max on some 3D planes to assist me with the desired proportions of the character. After the Mike shape has been achieved I will add fur to give it a mixed look between Mike and Sulley of Monsters Inc. My goal with this character is to explore the 3DS Max CAT (Character Animation Toolkit) system.
Reference Drawing | Lego Blueprint
From previous years learning I created a Lego figurine although time constraints did not allow us to complete the character. For this brief I decided to return to my partially complete Lego man model and finish him to interact with my main character. My goal with this character is to explore the 3DS Max Biped character animation system.
Modeling Timelapse
CAT System vs Biped System
Within this piece I used two different types of character rigging systems, both available within 3Ds Max. Biped is an older but certainly more versatile system for rigging any form of character, regardless of number of limbs, features, tails etc. It’s typically used to translate and capture MoGraph live data from actors performances. The performances, once captured can be applied to almost any 3D character or existing rig. More simple features such as the walk (or run) cycle in my animation were not as simple to achieve as the CAT system. The CAT system is a more modern, newly implemented system in 3Ds Max that is much more accessible and has the majority of scenarios thought out; such as two legged humans, four legged animals, even as far some insects etc can be managed. There are many global operators to manipulate all the various aspects of your animation. Which is exactly what I did here for Butch.
