How To Create And Rig A Realistic Puppet Day 10

How To Create And Rig A Realistic Puppet Day 10

on Oct 18th 2011 with 9 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: After Effects and FreeForm Pro
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Run Time: 9:35 min
This entry is part 11 of 18 in the How To Create And Rig A Realistic Puppet Session
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This entry is part 10 of 17 in the series Rig A Realistic Puppet

Rig A Realistic Puppet

This Tutorial shows you how to apply the painted displacement map to the characters head. I also demonstrate how to use an animate-able displacement map composition to create a more detailed deformable face.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mov

File size: 84.4 MB

Series Navigation«How To Create And Rig A Realistic Puppet Day 9How To Create And Rig A Realistic Puppet Day 11»
 
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Daniel grew up in Alberta in the Kananaskis Valley at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. He started doing animation when he was very young and began with simple flipbooks. It wasn't long before his Dad had him in front of a computer using Autodesk Animator to realize his creations. He hasn't stopped since. Daniel lives in Montreal, Quebec.  

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  • Kuni

    The Face looks realy great. But what is the advantage of creating it that way in AE and not in a real 3D Program like Maya?
    It doesn’t seem like u are any faster in AE and i guess there are ways to make it look like a hand-drawn character in a 3D program as well….

  • http://None Strut

    @kuni Wow! Really? you can create it this fast in Maya? You must be one incredible Maya power user. With all due respect , I really doubt it. Can you please do a tut to show this – it would also be nice to show your render times. We have worked with Maya for quite a while now and have never been able to match the speeds Dan is showing here. Not in creating, previewing or rendering. Please share your techniques. I can see the logic in using Maya if all of the puppet parts were full blown 3d but not for the style that Dan is showing here. Any way I would love to see how you would do it in Maya.

  • Bwakathaboom

    I can’t speak for the author but my guess is that it would be a matter of staying with the tools you know. If you’re a 2D artist or highly experienced with After Effects, it’s faster to get a setup like this running than it is to learn Maya, Max or Blender with enough skill to create the same results.

    • http://www.mettle.com Chris

      Agreed Bwakathaboom. Furthermore having spent some time with Dan (the author of the tut), I can tell you that Dan is pretty comfortable with Maya yet he chose this route on his own volition.

      On my side, we have done quite a bit of this type of animation at Mettle over the years and we are all very comfortable in 3D apps at Mettle. Given the choice, I would definitely go with Dan’s route, I would not use Maya to do this… unless the whole body needed to be done in 3D.

      That said, I am open to new ideas and ways of doing things. I second Strut’s request. If Kuni can show us how we would be better served by doing this in Maya then I am all ears. Go for it.

      Cheers,
      Chris
      mettle.com

  • 10polarbears

    I would have thought that style aside controlling the animation within a composting package would be a strong enough reason. Rather than rendering then compositing a baked animation.

    • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Chris

      Agreed, this alone is reason enough to stick to this approach. Just the pre-planning and second guessing you need to do when creating the head in a full 3D app is maddening enough. You lose all spontaneity and creativity with that approach – this is much better in many ways.

      Cheers,
      Chris
      mettle.com

  • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Chris

    Another good argument is that you can add finishing touches (grading, filters etc.) right in the same software/session.

  • Kuni

    I’ve never said I can do this, i haven’t even worked with Maya yet but i’ve seen some tutorials of guys modelling/rigging characters in a few hours. I mean there is a lot of refining and tweaking that is not shown in these videos as well.

    But when you say it’s faster in AE i believe you guys… was just my impression ;-)

    • Bwakathaboom

      No worries – I think maybe people misinterpreted your comment as a slam against the author or the methods in the tutorial itself.

      It’s basically the user’s choice. If you’re going to boot up Maya or Max you may as well commit to a full model and rig to gain the extra control over your mesh and animation. In that case you’re talking about an entirely different skillset and methodology. You would have to render the results, which can be enormously time consuming (futzing with the renderer is a job in itself at most studios) and you still require After Effects or some other post software for finaling.

      You’re not wrong. If the project needs a 360 degree model with fine mesh control and IK then you’ll probably go to a dedicated 3D program. But if you can “cheat” it with a 2.5D solution right in your compositing software, why not go for it?