First thing first...
Ok, first thing first. Let me tell you a about this shortfilm I'm working on. How did I decided to make a short animation about a mouse? Well, idea is always there actually. Mice are probably one of the most characterised and most famous animal used in cartoon & stories. Mickey Mouse, Super Mouse, Danger Mouse, Jerry, Speedy Gonzales, Stuart Little... and they mostly (if not always) got to play the good character in these cartoons. Cute little guys. But unfortunately, mice also one of the most despised creatures know to men... well, women actually. I know that when there is a tiny mouse shows up in a room or anywhere, 8 of 10 women will starts to screaming while trying find a chair to climb. So, all this fame, this "cute mouse saves the day" stories is for what? I personally like these little animals when I was a kid and I still do. But, you just can't make people like them, no mather how much advertise you make. First impression is really important I guess. The first encounter of Human and Mouse must've been pretty nasty. :) You can't break it. That's not what I intend to do anyway. Why create another stereotype? What I really want is creating a funny animation that is also fun to watch as working. So basicly I'm doing this to entertain myself. :)
I worked on character modelling and texturing about a week or two. I decided to use Mental Ray's SubSurface Scattering skin shader for mouse's material. Hope that it won't cause me any problem when it comes to final rendering, cause I'm not good very at it. :) Anyway. I started working on rigging around first week of February. The rig I wanted to create is a skeleton system that features stretching and squashing limbs. Like 2D Disney Cartoons. Flexible characters. It gives cartoon a very cool feeling. Majority of 3D Characters lacks of this squash & stretch. Is it because of software limitation, or It's difficult to setup than normal rigs? Or they just don't want stretchy stuff? I don't know. But I do know is that it's going to be a stretchy & squashy animation. :)
Character setup is almost finished. Actually it was already finished 10 days ago, but then I thought of different ways to rig some parts to make it more simple. My friend Eek from CGTalk forums gave me some brilliant ideas about this. He is a real Jedi. :) (thanks master) Also Chris Harvey helped me a lot with my -never ending- questions.
After a few more days of struggling, (oh and this time it involves maxscript!) it's about to end... unless I change my mind. :)
I'll write more about the story... later. ;)
I worked on character modelling and texturing about a week or two. I decided to use Mental Ray's SubSurface Scattering skin shader for mouse's material. Hope that it won't cause me any problem when it comes to final rendering, cause I'm not good very at it. :) Anyway. I started working on rigging around first week of February. The rig I wanted to create is a skeleton system that features stretching and squashing limbs. Like 2D Disney Cartoons. Flexible characters. It gives cartoon a very cool feeling. Majority of 3D Characters lacks of this squash & stretch. Is it because of software limitation, or It's difficult to setup than normal rigs? Or they just don't want stretchy stuff? I don't know. But I do know is that it's going to be a stretchy & squashy animation. :)
Character setup is almost finished. Actually it was already finished 10 days ago, but then I thought of different ways to rig some parts to make it more simple. My friend Eek from CGTalk forums gave me some brilliant ideas about this. He is a real Jedi. :) (thanks master) Also Chris Harvey helped me a lot with my -never ending- questions.
After a few more days of struggling, (oh and this time it involves maxscript!) it's about to end... unless I change my mind. :)
I'll write more about the story... later. ;)