Bringing Sophie to Life

There's not a lot to say here from an animation perspective; I built a fairly straightforward rig with legs controlled using IK, and called upon my technical director to build an arm rig that does both IK and FK (which I'm not yet convinced is quite working properly). The rig is basically a customised version of that described in the Digital Tutors tutorial on character rigging, which I highly recommend. One of the main refinements was that I needed additional control over the hip orientation, beyond the default secondary motion provided by that rig, so I called upon my technical director to add a greater degree of control.



Skinning is an area I despise, and I called upon my technical support for assistance.

After skinning her to the rig, I modelled a number of blend shapes for her face to give her some emotional range (with particular attention to the needs of the story; see a future post for details), and a body blend for an important plot point (and no, she isn't pregnant).

Character Design - The birth of Sophie

My interpretation of a character personifying a rose is a woman who is very beautiful, tempermental and with a fiery temper; a thorny personality and someone who knows how to get what she wants. I was explicitly staying clear of the more traditional interpretation of an "English Rose", as it contrasts too much with the thorny nature of the character I wanted to portray.

I originally looked at actresses who posessed a certain elegance and glamour, cloaking a foul temperment (think of the 50s glamour queens and their demands and off-screen lives). Below are a few character designed that I drew while trying to come up with a more modern yet cartoony interpretation.




While I'd settled on a personality for my character, I hadn't yet settled on a physical representation. I was weighing the tradeoff between the benefits and costs of modeling my own versus purchasing a model or even fully-rigged character. Doing things myself is more educational and cheaper, but distracts from my primary goal of focusing on the animation (rather than modelling, rigging, etc), and could lead to more stress over the course of the project. The downside of purchased assets are the financial cost and the risk that they would not be fit for purpose (and not owning the IP for the project 100%).

In the end I found a model (unrigged, and in 3DS Max only) on TurboSquid, and I've called her "Sophie." I'll let my husband (who has acted as my technical director) explain how I got her from 3DS Max to Maya 6.5.

The 3DS Max (*.max) file downloaded from TurboSquid contained a number of mesh objects modelled at a relatively low detail and with TurboSmooth operators applied. I deleted the TurboSmooth modifiers from the modifier stack, grouped the objects we wanted to export and exported them from 3DS Max as an FBX object. We imported this into Maya 8.0 (the FBX import function works better there than in Maya 6.5), tidied some problems from the import process (like objects with negative scaling, odd polygon and vertex normals, etc), then saved her as a Maya ASCII (*.ma) file. We then hand-edited the file to change the version from 8.0 to 6.5 so it would load in Maya 6.5 (why Maya doesn't automatically save as the lowest file version that the saved objects require I have no idea), and the model was ready to use.

Well, almost ready to use; the model as it stood was in no way ready for skinning, as no consideration had been made for deformations that would be needed for animation. Particular problem areas were the groin (where the leg would need to bend) and the mouth, where edge loops around the mouth and nose are preferable to the modelled quads to support smooth deformations. The following pictures are before I worked to reflow the mesh:



And after:


You can see that as well as reflowing the mesh to be better prepared for skinning and animation, I altered a few stylistic things:

• Covered the breasts.
• Gave her a more modern hairstyle.
• Removed the suspender belts.
• Slimmed her hips.
  
• Gave her more fashionable underwear.
• Gave her lipstick.
  

The feather ramp texture did not survive the 3DS max to Maya transition (nor did the eye materials), so they also needed redoing.
Here we have the final before and after rendered images; from a voluptuous tart to a Vegas glamour girl.

Central St Martins Final Project

So here I am having completed my first two terms in the Post-graduate Diploma course in 3D Character Animation at Central St Martins, entering my third and final term and tasked with doing a final project inspired by a painting at the National Gallery.

One of the guidelines for the project is that it must be character-based, not abstract. This means that while any painting owned by the National Gallery could be chosen, the relationship between the painting and the animation need not be direct. Having chosen a still-life, the relationship between the painting and my animation is one of inspiration and interpretation.

After many visits to the National Gallery, I've finally chosen one painting, "A Cup of Water and a Rose on a Silver Plate" by Francisco de Zurbarán. I chose this painting because I found it to be beautiful and something I would be happy to hang in my own home. What inspired me about this painting was the relationship between the rose and the water; the rose is beautiful, exquisite and eye-catching, yet she cannot exist without the water.

I explored the idea that my character was the vibrant, exciting and entertaining partner in it srelationship with me, her animator, but I eventually rejected this as too difficult to explain to the audience without feeling like a clumsy mechanic.

With that idea in the bin, I reconstructed my story based around a more physical dependence (and one tied more to a literal interpretation of the painting), and a thirsty prima-donna showgirl was born.