Rigging

The main rigging done for Painted Dreams was for the character Sam. He has been rigged using bones for movement and mesh blending for facial expressions. Along with the standard hand controls that can be used visually, Sam also has his own animating interface which allows quick access to sliders (for facial expressions and finite movement) and numerical values (arbitrary movement) to manipulate almost all parts of his movement – see the animating interface heading for screens shot. This interface also allows the enabling and disabling of controls and which models to show.

To speed up animation Sam has also been rigged with a non-deforming mesh (ie: shows cracks where joints move) which can be enabled or disabled depending on when it’s required. This secondary mesh also updates with model changes made to his normal mesh.

Sam

Sam with Controls

Sam's Bones

Animating Interface

A feature of Houdini is the ability to create custom interfaces which speeds up and simplifies animation. The following screenshots show a custom interface that I developed for Sam. It allows the quick access to sliders and numerical values as I’m animating and also provides the ability to hid and show parts of Sam and his controls.