I need someone to sketch some rotos for me

[fae_alba]

So normally I would ask my daughter to do this for me, but her mind is on other things, only weeks away from making me a grandpa, so I'm coming to the forums.

 

I am trying to dust off, improve, and capitalize on my meager modeling and rigging skills for a little project I have in mind. Below is a picture of Disney's Humphrey the Bear. It is exceedingly hard to find images of Humphrey that can be used to create a model from, this being the best I've found so far. Serg2 had created a head for me last year, but I wanted to do the body. My problem is that I, for some reason, have a real problem in imagining the body in 3D space from the flat picture. I hope I will have better luck with proper sketches that can be used as rotoscopes. So anyone out there in A:M forum land willing to help a soon to be granddaddy out??

 

[Rodney]

Unless someone really wants to take this on I'd like to take this challenge on.

It may be possible that no drawing is necessary (if I can find the right reference) but I'm in the drawing mood so...

 

...just say the word and I'm in.

[fae_alba]

Unless someone really wants to take this on I'd like to take this challenge on.

It may be possible that no drawing is necessary (if I can find the right reference) but I'm in the drawing mood so...

 

...just say the word and I'm in.

 

Rodney I would be most grateful!

[robcat2075]

As soon as I saw this I thought Rodney would be the ideal candidate.

[Rodney]

Here's a first draft... I started messing with it and messing it up so I figured I should post it before going any further.

I haven't given a lot of thought to where spline might be placed and that will be an important consideration.

 

I did an initial test to see how the lines might come in as splines via the AI Wizard but I should have used the black and white image first... the plugin choked on the detail. If interested I can run that through again as that would give you an initial placement of splines that you wouldn't have to lay down.

 

This was more digital manipulation than drawing but I tried to get some variation in the various views.

Some decisions will need to be made on whether to keep fingers and toes pointy or rounded and you might want to borrow Keekat's chest hair to get some bear hair going. I noted that dependng on the artist/animator the styles for Humphry can vary a lot and I even found some comic books. If interested I can smash all the various reference images together and post those.

 

Added: The reason I have Humphrey jumping is that for a moment I considered doing a turnaround that would roto him in a variety of poses.

I think maybe we'll save that for the 3D version.

 

Also: I note that Humphrey's nose is often cheated from front to side view. In some images his nose appears slightly heart shaped (on the top). If we need to perfectly align those I'll inbetween them and find a happy medium. As they are right now they don't align in the front/side views. In the side view I would say his head is tilted back a considerably. Tilting it forward should get it into closer alignment.

 

Back to you!

 

As soon as I saw this I thought Rodney would be the ideal candidate.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence Robert!

[Rodney]

Here's a spline roto that came from the raster to vector test I did with Xara Xtreme (which over here the Tinkering Gnome noted was free until 20 May):

Why use a standard roto when you can start from a spline roto instead?

 

Note: The results here are using default settings across the board. Simplifying the results in Xara would reduce the splines coming into A:M considerably.

 

Edit: I removed the model for now because it is entirely too spline heavy.

I'll adjust the settings and upload it again later today.

 

Added: Uploaded a simplified roto:

 

[Rodney]

What I find particularly nice about this workflow is that these two files, the image/decal (.png) and the model/spline roto (.mdl), are generated from exactly the same file; an adobe illustrator (.ai) file:

 

AI_Import.mdl

[Gerry]

Nice work, Rodney!

[largento]

Nice, Rodney!

[fae_alba]

As soon as I saw this I thought Rodney would be the ideal candidate.

 

In truth as soon as I posted the topic Rodney was my hope too!

[fae_alba]

Bloody hell Rodney, way to go above and beyond!

 

Let me give a little background on what i intend to do with our Humphrey here......

 

A few weeks ago I created a little blog on trip planning for Disney (I won't post the url here so as not to break any rules), and in trying to come up with a way to have the blog stand out from the rest I started a bit of brainstorming. Growing up one of the Disney series that I really loved was the Goofy how-to's. I resonate with Humphrey largely because my kids kid my with the nickname of Pappa Bear, and Humphrey is a rather likeable bloke as well.

 

So I naturally put two and two together and came up with five. Create a series of shorts starring Pappa Bear, aka our version of Humphrey, that highlight some of the hints and tips from the blog. Create another blog for the virtual studio creating the shorts that highlights the animation process (and as a major component A:M), cross-polinate, and walla! we have some fun creating a new internet sensation.

 

So my goal is ultimately have humphrey totally rigged to make animation as simple as possible to minimize the development time of each short. Keep the short down to no more than 3 to 5 minutes, and staged in Walt Disney World. What I am still trying to decide is if Humphrey will be a true 3D rendering or toon, and if the park set will be 3D generated or use actual footage of the parks (I have some folks who still work at for Disney who I could have shoot footage, but that could get problematic in getting footage that really matches what I want).

 

I'm leaning towards a more toon rendering, since to me I want to keep as close to the original Disney style as possible, with the scenes either projection maps or true models.

 

This is still in the planning stages, but I'm pretty much ready to start work on this. Rodney, looks like he made the job so much easier with what he has done, though I can't check out the model yet since I'm still in the office.

 

Rodney, you truly rock man, thanks.

[Rodney]

Thanks Paul,

I only see the flaws (which are many) but hopefully that will give you a starting point.

 

One of the reasons I wanted to do an animated turnaround is that it reduces those flaws considerably.

For instance, in between the front and side views of the head we have something of a problem with the smiling face on the front and the frowning face from the side. The comic book simplification is a quick overtrace of a Humphrey face I saw posted in a comic book.

The corners of the mouth really irritate me and even now I want to go back in and resolve that by having him smile (or frown... or both) from all views.

 

I created a little blog on trip planning for Disney

 

There are a few 3D recreations of Humphrey already out there in the wild and those would be great to get up close and personal with.

One is a figurine based on one of the old animated short films. One is a teddy bear. And the other is the bottom character on a life sized totem pole in Disney's Wilderness Lodge.

 

As far as reference goes, I haven't looked through all the Humphrey shorts themselves and I'm sure there are some very nice views to choose from in those.

Example:

 

kcaQ4P7qn38

 

Hooked Bear

 

Q7JhGMXvDP4

 

Donald's Fish Fry

 

Perhap's the classic Humphry the Bear short (with a ton of bears duplicated all over the place) is in the 1956 short 'In the Bag':

 

4ol28kPTqa4

 

Of course there are many others to include 'Bongo' which is a great short to study because of it's higher quality.

 

Interestingly, one of the directors went on to create other, almost carbon copy versions of Humphrey for other studios.

Those can provide decent reference as well.

 

And there is Yogi bear too which is something of the ultimate oversimplification of Humphrey.

 

In yet other news there is Humphrey B. Bear who only looks like Disney's Humphrey on occasion.

[fae_alba]

I never was all that great with modeling characters. Here's a first crack at him. I'm not really happy with it, but let's hear some comments...

 

[Rodney]

Looking good Paul!

 

The primary area that seems to stand out as 'off model' is the origin of the shoulders/arms which in your model is really low and in most of the imagery/references appears to begin just below the head. Some minor simplification of splines might help in making him more squashable and stretchable which is something I'm confident you'll be wanting. The other option might be to lower the head down to the shoulders. In drawing the rotoscope I had to make a compromise in the angle of the arms going out to the side in that they curved downward more than they remained horizontal (as in your model).

 

I'm tempted to suggest that wherever you have a shape you might strive a bit more for a curved line.

By this I mean to say that your model appears to have real bones and anatomy whereas Humphrey's construction only hints at that underlying structure in a minimal style. The example of this might be seen in your model's knees which in most reference aren't nobby knees but two parts connected together in a classic Disney/Warner Bros line.

 

Can you post a render or two from the front and side views?

That will help with the analysis.

 

He's definitely a bear right now... and a good looking one... now he just needs to be pushed a little bit more toward the likeness of Humphrey.

I'd say the eyes (mischievious), shoulders (hunched) and knees (streamlined) are the primary character identification areas to focus on.

 

Added: I've attached a crude drawing that attempts to raise the shoulders and simplify the mid section. By raising the shoulders/arms you could then remove some of the midsection to achieve easier squash/stretch in animation. I would also make the toes more pointed. In some instances it's almost like he couldn't bare his own weight whereas with your model's wider toes he'd have no problem there. You might be able to achieve that tapering effect simply by scaling the toes down smaller toward the ends. There should be some of that tapering/sharpness in the fingers as well. There aren't too many places on Humphrey that are sharp so you'll want to place some emphasis there.

 

It's a bit hard to see detail in the face of your model and that is a clue in and of itself that suggests you might want to further exaggerate the whites of the eyes and add those largishly dark and expressive eyebrows.

[steve392]

Good looking rotos Rodney

[Rodney]

Good looking rotos Rodney

 

Thanks. Working on this roto has reminded me how much I miss drawing.

I've got the time to do that now but now that I do I don't ever seem to draw.

Isn't life funny like that.

[robcat2075]

That's a real good effort on the head.

 

Those legs look like they have way more spline rings that you would need for those shapes and more than you would want when you set out to rig them.

[fae_alba]

Rodney: As soon as you mentioned the shoulders I saw it too, and did the ultimate hand to forehead duh! It sticks out like a sore thumb doesn't it. Your sketch of changes looks spot on, and I'll work on that this evening for sure.

 

Robert, I cannot take credit for the head, serg did that for me last year, and did do a perfect job of it since he rigged it as well..just need to get the body to match the head..and this bear is ready for his debut performance!

 

When of the challenges I had was that every time I stitched pieces of the body together, the spline paths seemed to have a mind of their own. That together with some really weird behavior with bias twisting splines totally out of whack and it became somewhat frustrating. The legs and feet I am not at all happy with. The feet I actually did about two years ago when I tried modeling the character, and were the only thing salvageable from that effort. Now i look at them and sort of cringe, since they are so spline heavy. One of the things I think I should do is go through and delete as many spline rings as possible to try and smooth of the mesh, I think that is where much of the "lumpiness" is coming from. One other thing that keeps wondering around in the back of my mind is whether or not I should add a spline to define the stomach region where the color is different. Right now it is a decal, which may be ok if I can get it applied properly.

 

Lots to do before I can even start to think of rigging, but I'm bound and determined to do this right since I have plans for a lot of shorts for pappa bear aka Humphrey!

[robcat2075]

... the spline paths seemed to have a mind of their own. That together with some really weird behavior with bias twisting splines totally out of whack and it became somewhat frustrating...

 

Can you show this happening? I'm not sure what you mean.

[serg2]

MEDVED

MEDV.prj

MEDV_02.mdl

[fae_alba]

... the spline paths seemed to have a mind of their own. That together with some really weird behavior with bias twisting splines totally out of whack and it became somewhat frustrating...

 

Can you show this happening? I'm not sure what you mean.

 

 

If I run across it again I'll get a screen grab and make a copy of the model.

[Mr Bump]

MEDVED

serg2 was very hurry to party, so he asked me to comment his attachment. bear model is our joint child. I've tryed to attach serg's head to mine body. But rather spoil it by scaling. Much better would be to scale the body of bear. Happy scaling!

Edited May 22, 2013 by Mr Bump

[TheSpleen]

wow Rodney

[robcat2075]

serg2 was very hurry to party...

 

 

Welcome to the A:M forum, Mr. Bump!

[Mr Bump]

Hello!

Russian bear is almost ready to dance with you.

The rig is not the best in the world. But it works and can spare your time. Just reattach serg's head and go dance! Remember - scale body.

The existing MEDV.mdl lost serg's muscle face poses. They are over exagerated after scaling.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Mr Bump

[fae_alba]

Hello!

Russian bear is almost ready to dance with you.

The rig is not the best in the world. But it works and can spare your time. Just reattach serg's head and go dance! Remember - scale body.

The existing MEDV.mdl lost serg's muscle face poses. They are over exagerated after scaling.

 

Thanks for the model. I'm going to hold it in ready reserve. If I get so frustrated in my own efforts I'll incorporate your model.

[fae_alba]

Here he is...take 2. Lots of spline rings removed..

 

[largento]

Way to go, Paul!

[Rodney]

Looking very good!

 

How much more feedback are you looking for? Are you striving to go all the way to a perfect likeness here or just good enough to call your own?

At this point my main suggestion is a minor one which would be to extend the belly's color all the way up to the neck. If you want to add a tuft of hair I refer you to Keekat's chest splinage for an ideal approach.

 

In the classic 'Be Largento' tradition it would be appropriate for me to recommend adjusting the splineage so that the belly follows the spline path (and vice versa if you prefer). This is one of the primary benefits to patched based modeling over polygonal approaches because these patch regions/groups greatly aid us later should we want to add/perfect decals/textures/fur etc. Approaching the various shapes of the character without adding any decals at the initial modeling stage really seals the deal on optimization of spline continuity as well and having the characters primary shapes defined by the patches themselves will also help to make the character much easier to animate. One of the secrets to animation is changing shapes from frame to frame so it will really help to define... to absolutely know... what those shapes are.

 

If looking to push ol' Humphrey even closer to perfection I refer you to my last draw over (and post) which suggests tapering the fingers and toes.

Oh, and what the heck... a darker/blacker nose.

The nose should echo the color of the eyebrows to create a triangle of interest that draws attention to the face where the character's expressions are.

 

Rock on Paul!

[fae_alba]

Looking very good!

 

How much more feedback are you looking for? Are you striving to go all the way to a perfect likeness here or just good enough to call your own?

At this point my main suggestion is a minor one which would be to extend the belly's color all the way up to the neck. If you want to add a tuft of hair I refer you to Keekat's chest splinage for an ideal approach.

 

In the classic 'Be Largento' tradition it would be appropriate for me to recommend adjusting the splineage so that the belly follows the spline path (and vice versa if you prefer). This is one of the primary benefits to patched based modeling over polygonal approaches because these patch regions/groups greatly aid us later should we want to add/perfect decals/textures/fur etc. Approaching the various shapes of the character without adding any decals at the initial modeling stage really seals the deal on optimization of spline continuity as well and having the characters primary shapes defined by the patches themselves will also help to make the character much easier to animate. One of the secrets to animation is changing shapes from frame to frame so it will really help to define... to absolutely know... what those shapes are.

 

If looking to push ol' Humphrey even closer to perfection I refer you to my last draw over (and post) which suggests tapering the fingers and toes.

Oh, and what the heck... a darker/blacker nose.

The nose should echo the color of the eyebrows to create a triangle of interest that draws attention to the face where the character's expressions are.

 

Rock on Paul!

 

Thanks Largento! Rodney, I think there is still some work to do on this guy. The head still feels like it is riding too high on the shoulders, I squashed it down some, but I don't think enough. I really want his chin down on his chest like Humphrey's is. I was wondering about splining in the arc for the chest colors, so since you mentioned it, I'll give it a go.

 

Now as to whether or not he should be an exact match to Humphrey, I'm on the fence. I certainly want him recognizable to Humphrey, I want to animate him using the same expressions, movements etc. But making him an exact match scares me a little since the ultimate goal is to create shorts with him in Disney park settings, on my Disney blog, and what I really don't want is nasty-grams from Disney lawyers! So I think I'll follow the artistic license route, make him look like, but not be an exact match of Humphrey, name him Pappa Bear, give him a family and go from there.

[markw]

Hi Paul, good to see you around here again. That's a fine looking Humphrey lookalike you've got going there!

Looking at your wireframe I was wondering if he wouldn't benefit from having one or two more spline rings around the top of the arm/shoulder area? Having three spline rings on a joint is usually a good rule of thumb to start out with.

[fae_alba]

Well, here's some more. Rodney, I went back and forth on the chest tuft of hair. Watched some of the Humphrey movies, and what jumped out is that hair detail was animated when the bears were in profile, but normally for the chest it was more just a chest muscle kind of detail. So that is what I did, modeled in some pecs. I also added some shoulder spline rings and, as Rodney suggested, added a spline loop to define the stomach region.

 

I'm feeling pretty good with the model right now...I think it is time to start the rigging process. I'll admit that I didn't think I would get this far. With the exception of Sergs' great job on the head, the body was a ground up effort...something I've never been able to pull off before.

 

Now let's see if I have the same success with the rigging!

pb_w2f.mov

pb_solid2.mov

[Rodney]

Nice refinements Paul!

 

Looking good.

[aen916]

Great work! I can't wait to see him in action. Humphrey was always one of my favorites.

[fae_alba]

Great work! I can't wait to see him in action. Humphrey was always one of my favorites.

 

Mine Too, next to Goofy of course!

I've started rigging using the 2008 rig. I think the biggest challenge is building a face rig that will give me the range of expressions that Humphrey had. Recreating the eye shapes and mouth/lip movements will be pushing my rigging skills.

[NancyGormezano]

he looks terrific!

[thefreshestever]

he´s looking good!!!! the only thing that baffled me a bit was the squarish chest definition...

and i don´t think you need 3 spline rings for the definition of the shoulder, 2 will do the trick as well.. gives you less headaches while rigging him

[fae_alba]

So I've got the 2008 rig half installed, and am now adding in cp weighting. One thing I am wondering about as I go trough this process (strangely I'm rather enjoying the process this time through!), some areas of the mesh on the model look great when a bone is rotated along a more "normal" range of motion, but when you push it tho the extreme, the mesh distorts beyond an exceptable amount. My goal is to make the animation process as simple as possible by making sure that the model behaves well, with as little of the irritating distortions that could happen (bones being twisted all over the place, etc.) Is there a way to place limits on the rig so that so the pelvis bone cannot be rotated beyond a certain value? I'm thinking that doing that might make things a bit easier for me. I can't show what I mean right now since I'm at work, but perhaps the rigging/animating brain trust might be able to suss out what I am trying to say with my rambling and provide some insight.

[thefreshestever]

make a new on/off pose, call it let´s say limits or something like that.. pick the bone you want to limit, right mouse click, choose >>new constraint>>euler limits... type in the desired values for minimum and maximum in the different rotation axis...

[fae_alba]

OK, so I failed fan bones 101. I made it through the rigging of one half of Pappa Bear, CP weighted the ankle, knee, hip, shoulder (still some issues there) and started work on the elbow. I have been using one of the sample models that was included with the 2008 rig instructions. When I set the cp weighting for the middle ring of the elbow to 100% of the fan bone it distorts the mesh. Any ideas on what might have caused this?

 

[mtpeak2]

You have it set to the right bicep fan, not the elbow fan.

[fae_alba]

You have it set to the right bicep fan, not the elbow fan.

did i say the elbow fan??? my bad. The ring is assigned to the right bicep fan

[mtpeak2]

It needs to be set to the elbow fan. The bicep fan is for the shoulder.

[fae_alba]

It needs to be set to the elbow fan. The bicep fan is for the shoulder.

 

now we're talking! it always takes another set of eyes to see the obvious...many thanks

[fae_alba]

And the rigging saga continues. This one is really dealing with the hand rig I suppose. When I rotate the right finger controller in an action window the pinky finger distorts. It looks kind of painful, really, and I was hoping our rigging gurus will point me in the right direction to correct it.

 

hand_issue.avi

[mtpeak2]

It's hard to tell from the video, but it's probably the cp weighting or bone placement. It would be easier to tell if I could see the model.

[fae_alba]

It's hard to tell from the video, but it's probably the cp weighting or bone placement. It would be easier to tell if I could see the model.

 

and so here it is

 

PappaBearRigged_V1_6.mdl

[mtpeak2]

Hmmm, did you follow the instructions? I'm finding hand and foot bones out of position.

[fae_alba]

Hmmm, did you follow the instructions? I'm finding hand and foot bones out of position.

 

I did...doesn't mean I didn't mess it up in the process!

[mtpeak2]

The biggest probem I see is you seem to have translated the foot and hand. The second thing seems to be scaling problems in the hand or you did some manual translations in the fingers.

 

I would go over the instructions again and try another install. Before you start weighting, I can take a look at the bone positions again.