this will be great!

the hands and fingers would definitely be scalable so its up to the animator to decide. I was particularly fund of hogarth's proportions and especially the design of his hands.. they're so appealing.. Eye's should pretty big and expressive, that way it can be read easially..

Last edited by DanCe3d (07-31-2010 9:29 am)

Haha, I like how Danc3d had a suggestion and I took over, and now I had a suggestion and he took over

But yeah, this could definitely be a huge deal if it get's off the ground. If everyone wants to help out, you can start by finding some good rigging reels done in Maya on YouTube and ask the rigger if they would be interested. The CGTalk thread has a lot less response than I would have hoped for. I realize this won't be done overnight but I'm real eager to get started.

Or, what if we look for good designers and see if we can use their existing designs. Im sure there are good character designers who would be more then willing to give some designs for a rig.. check around guys..

Hi All;
I recently got permission to take RH's Zulu character and rebuild it as a maya rig. I've already done some modifications to it but I can always do them over if you think it needs any changes.
Here's the original:


and here's what I've done with it:


Technically I'm just an animator, and I was planning to just auto rig it, but I got stuck at making the facial setup. I've been wanting to contribute a series of appealing rigs that all could fit into the same world if they were animated together, but as that is a side project and my actual schoolwork always tends to take up 90% of my time, this is all I have for now. I have worked on other character designs if anyone is interested in reviewing them for this project...

Last edited by HMLTFan (07-31-2010 8:41 pm)

Yeah it would be a shame to have a Bishop clone and not be able to use it in any 11SC entries. We definitely need an original design, or at least something that looks nothing like Bishop.

i was really thinking about proportions near hogarth.. he looks very fun to animate..

Norman is so customizable I think it would be worthwhile to just make it a bit more user friendly in terms of its proportions.
I've seen good norman kids, large, small, females, old you name it with norman. You can create blendshapes of the body and lattices around all the individual geo, and make his body look however. Im sure with some work one could make some set driven keys that can be pretty animator friendly in terms of customization. Save the time modelling a generic looking character and rigging it as well, just supe up the already existing one that is an amazing rig.

I'm pretty torn honestly. They both have their pro's and con's. Here's how I see it:

from scratch (hey, now there's a good name lol):
Pros:
-More originality
-Would be a brand new rig for everyone to play with
-Wouldn't be recognizable like the other well known rigs/something fresh
Cons
-Would take a lot longer
-Requires more people to pitch in

Modify existing:
Pros
-Rigs already built
-Only modify instead of build from scratch
Cons
-The well known ones like Norman and Moom are a bit overused
-There's already a Norman database of modified Normans

I'm pretty much 60/40 for scratch vs modify. I really think us animators deserve to have a really cool rig to play with, something we can customize and "call our own". The Bishop 2.0 news has really inspired me, I say we go for it (I can sooner build my own custom rig than wait till class 4 comes around to be able to use Bishop)

hey all, i just stumbled on this thread, and i love the idea of having a rig similar to bishop in terms of control, and for what its worth, i don't mind lending a hand as well...
i'm actually an animator but i've done some rigging as well, but anyways, heres a video of what i've done thus far, i'm still a student and am still learning but if you see me fit for anything, i don't mind helping

Direct Link

paulnaas wrote:

The only issue I see with this character is that from this angle it looks like his neck attaches to the back of his head.  Maybe it's just a bad angle, but his cranium should extend back from the back of the neck some.

Thanks, I'll see if I can fix that...

paulnaas wrote:

Ramimator wrote:

mmm...I don't know i had a feeling that this rig is another Bishop look a like, but a bit different.

I don't see it myself.  Please, let's stop with the "it's too close to Bishop" silliness.  With the 2.0 rig, it's going to be much harder to identify just what Bishop actually looks like, and trying to get completely away from ANYTHING that looks like him at all is a fool's errand.  Good faith effort not to copy the rig should be sufficient.  <rant off>

The only issue I see with this character is that from this angle it looks like his neck attaches to the back of his head.  Maybe it's just a bad angle, but his cranium should extend back from the back of the neck some.

Paulnaas: So first of all.. when you talk about something, you should talk about your own point of view..and it will be respectful...So i can consider what you are talking about is silly or you don't have eyes to see the difference .."my point of view too"...what do you think??...You won't stop me saying my opinion just because you think it's silliness....Anyway this was my point of view in this character and i still have it..this doesn't relate to any silliness..We don't need to have rigs that look like others in any way... much better to have a fresh new design...Thanks.

Back to the subject...I think maybe we could post a topic about the character design in the concept art community..what do you think guys?? ...and see if there are volunteers..

Last edited by Ramimator (08-01-2010 8:47 am)