Character Study: KeeKat

[Rodney]

 

For those who were involved in, modeling, rigging and animating KeeCat and others that have used KeeCat in animation tests and/or experiments... What can new users learn from KeeCat?

 

Would anyone care to post their thoughts concerning the KeeKat Character?

[Rodney]

By way of initial introduction to the Keekat model found in Excercise 1 of the Art of Animation Master manual I'd like to point out some basic information about the model.

 

The Keecat model was created by Bill Young of recent Animation:Master Model A Face With Bill Young fame. I believe he is still lead modeller and technical director for Anzovin Studios.

 

For more information on Bill's activities check out this link:

Animation:Master Model A Face with Bill Young

 

 

The character itself is the product of and copyright 2002 by Paw Island Entertainment Inc. Visit their site: http://www.pawisland.com/ for a further look at KeeKat and friends!

 

Of particular interest to artists might be the 'How to Draw' section of the web site.

Behind the wonderful simplicity of the 3D Keekat is a basic design that lends itself readily to 3D. See "How to Draw Keekat Here"!

 

Artist Steve Vitale (Loosetoon) lays claim to designing Keekat for Paw Island Entertainment. His work should look familiar to you if you investigate his site. He's contributed to Cartoon Network, PBS and more!

[3DArtZ]

Also with keekat....

The person who set up his latest rig, as far as I can tell, was me, Mike Fitzgerald.

I did rework the mesh a little bit in some areas, put the smartskin in and set upt he lip shapes.

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[Rodney]

Mike,

 

I didn't know that!

 

I am learning a lot about the character by studying available information.

I'd love to have your insight into a few of the areas you mentioned.

You hit a few interesting subjects in your reply, such as:

 

How different was reworking the mesh in the days before stitching versus now?

 

What is your take on the value of smartskinning?

 

What joys and pains are there in lipsync?

 

How did work on KeeKat influence your current work/rigging?

 

In short:

What lessons did you learn from Keekat?

 

Feel free to post on any part of your experience with Keekat.

* There is, however, no pressure to respond. *

 

I hope to point to a few tutorials along the way but am mainly just collecting information (mostly already on the internet) here. That way new users may gain an appreciation of some of the work that goes into the 'carefully' planned and executed creation of a model.

 

Additional input from any of the creators would certainly be nice though!

[3DArtZ]

Hey Rodney, I'll do my best to ans. the questions you have....[

Stitching..... I still go point to point, I don't really realy on stitching for anything, although it could be something that i'm just ignoring?

 

Value of Smartskinning.... I use smartskin only on lipshapes. Having it as a feature to use if you need it for joint touch up is great,but I don't think I have added smartskin to a characters joints in over 2 years.

 

Joys and pain of lip synch - the pains, setting it up, having it look horrible after you've takent he time to set it up.

Joys - watching the character convince you that it is actually speaking. Once all the lip shape targets are created, making lip sych seems to be very easy in A:M

 

What I took from rigging keekat..... I must have worked on keekat 8 different times. When I first was given Keekat, the mouths modelled position was open, in a smile. So I had to remodel the mouth to be closed and then remodel the smile into one of the pose windows.

By the time I had officially finished working on keekat, I had smartskinned him 4 or 5 different times. It became painfully apparant to me that smartskining joints was just a matter of positioning control points around the joint in a circular pattern, which ultimately lead to the Cog design of fan bones. Fan bones handle any/all angles. Back then smartskin would look good only if you kept it on one of the axis. Like x-0,y-0,z-45. Any combo of the 3 would produce bad results. I'm told that that has been fixed today, but I don't know. I use cogs to handle joint rotations.

 

The short of what I learned from Working on keekat.... Things don't have to be perfect when working in character set up for animaiton. Meaning, getting little muscles rippling and making things look exactly like they do in real life, to me is not that important. And those little effects would probably go un noticed if someone were watching an animation that they had no control over as far as being able to watch it over an over again like we have with movie files. Like I'm sure if we had the ability to constantly pause and rewind animations in the movie theatre we'd find errors or things tht didn't look perfect in the movies. So don't get too caught up in making things pefect.... get caught up in making things so that there are no glaring mistakes.

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[Rodney]

Mike,

 

Thanks for your detailed response!

The work that you put into KeeKat was inspirational to me at the time I was just getting to know Animation Master. Truly inspired. It's not hard to imagine how you might refine some of the techniques into your current Cog system. I'd love to hear more about that.

 

I understand there was more than one KeeKat model. Both low resolution and high resolution models.

 

What, pray tell, is the benefit to having two models and how would they best be used effectively in Animation Master?

[Bill_Y]

I'm sorry about my late contribution to this thread, but I've not had my email machine up and running for a while, so didn't get Rodney's request. When modeling Keekat, I was given a maquette (small clay statue) of the character. His mouth was wide open, and in all the reference images I was given his mouth was also almost always wide open. So I decided that to maintain accuracy I would model him with the mouth open and enough splines so that his mouth could be closed, and we could get plenty of other "smiley" expressions out of him. The revision of Keekat you see now is many generations away from the original mesh. His original feet were more like that of Bugs Bunny in design. After feedback and other reference I made them into what you see now. There was one point where his tail went from thin state to a more club like tail and back to thin again as they felt the club tail was to "aggressive" looking for the character. The same thing happened with his teeth. No teeth, teeth, no teeth. I can't take credit for the eyes. The original eyes were designed in a different way. The final eyes were created by I belive Jeffrey Dates while he worked for Real F/X. They were a much simpler solution for toon eyes than any one at our studio had thought of using for the project. The nose when from a capped extrude to a distorted sphere to preserve the specular better. It's these kind of revision reworking that people often don't realise can happen.

 

After the model was "finalized" for its basic look I went back through and adjusted bias handles (At the time thought to be a "No no") to help keep the character looking clean; however, care had to be take to ensure that splines weren't going to pop in poses because of this. David Boutilier did the original facial poses, and ensured popping wouldn't happen. Raf Anzovin and Robin Johnson handled most of the rigging set up and smart skinning of Keekat. The rigging of the Paw island characters is what eventually led to the development of the setup machine.

 

We used an interesting technique to eliminate the axis issues with smart skin at the time, and it's still probably the best solution for people using older versions of A:M. instead of relying on one bone for smart skin rotation we created a second smart skin bone thats roll handle was set at a 45 degree offset to the original smart skin bone. This bone was used to coerect the overshooting that would occur when two of the original bone axis were moved in equal amounts. It would be difficult an not very useful to describe the entire process out; however, to try and explain this in a easier fashion, most smart skin movement happened on the x and y axes. If we draw a square on a piece of paper we can see that the distance from the center of the box to the edges there is a uniform distance. Now if we drew a line from the center of the box to the corners we would see a uniform distance as well, but this one is much greater because it is the intersection of the x and y axes added together. Now take another box of exactly the same size and place it at a 45 degree angle to the original box but with a shared center point. With these two boxes overlapping you can see that drawing a line from the center of the boxes toward either boxes corner now runs in to the other boxes side first. This is exactly what the second smart skin bone did. Instead of giving us 4 locations to evaluate smart skin from it gave us 8. Not perfect circular uniformity, but closer than a square... Funny... the old smart skin was actually trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

 

As far as surfacing went, Brian Prince (At the time from Eggington) did the surfacing. The base model for Keekat was later adapted by William Egginton for use as Allie another Paw Island character. This shows that some models can be recycled in some circumstances.

 

After the Paw Island project fell through. The Keekat model found it's way through several versions of A:M, and I'm pretty sure has seen a few more rigging incarnations than Mike's, but I'm not 100% sure. I know the base A:M rig has changed several time, but I'm not sure if any changes happened after Keekat was added to the collection.

 

I hope this helps people out, if there is more information people would like to know please feel free to ask.

[Rodney]

Thanks Bill!

 

And here everyone thought Keekat was just... Keekat!

 

It's plain to see that a lot of care and thought went into building Keekat and making him the best model it could possibly be.

 

From such humble beginnings...

The Setup Machine...

Cogs...

Here a little... there a little...

Spline... by spline... by spline...

Collaboration of some of the best minds and talent in the A:M community:

 

Raf Anzovin

Dave Boutilier

Jeffrey Dates

William Eggington

Mike Fitz

Robin Johnson

Brian Prince

Bill Young

 

A partial list of successful enterprizes also arises:

3DArtz

Anzovin Studio

Eggington Enterprises

ReelFX

 

Are we forgetting anyone?

We've only begun our journey and analysis of KeeKat...

[KenH]

One thing I've always wondered....

 

Why are KeeCats eyes at the back of his head in the modelling window? But in an action they come to the front.

[3DArtZ]

hey Ken. It's done that way so that the pupils can easily follow the surface shape of the eye.

not sure who implemented that, I think maybe Raf?

But it's a great wayt o make cartoon shaped eyeballs that have pupil geometry that follow the surface of any deformed eye.

The only draw back is that they are circular and in the back of the head untilt he constraints are activated.

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[ChrisThom]

hey Ken. It's done that way so that the pupils can easily follow the surface shape of the eye.

not sure who implemented that, I think maybe Raf?

But it's a great wayt o make cartoon shaped eyeballs that have pupil geometry that follow the surface of any deformed eye.

The only draw back is that they are circular and in the back of the head untilt he constraints are activated.

 

Is there some place to learn more about this because I have seen it done on a couple of charcters?

[3DArtZ]

Not sure if there is a tutorial out there about it.... but just open up KeeKat and pickit apart.

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[Rodney]

Now that A:M Films is online, everyone can see exactly what I was referring to concerning the talent put into the Paw Island project. Beautiful stuff! I was truly saddened when I learned the project was terminated. This awesome look at what can be done in Animation:Master still remains though... for that I'm grateful.

 

Paw Island trailer on A:M Films

 

A behind the scenes "making of" may still be available via one of the first SIGGRAPH Pro Series video tapes.

[Rodney]

More links to Keekat on A:M Films!!!

 

This one I had never seen. An intro to a Christmas special by ReelFX.

 

KeeKat leads the Nieman Marcus Christmas Day Parade - on A:M Films

[Rodney]

You say you want more Keekat? No problem.

 

Way back when.... the A:M Community got to see a few character tests of Keekat in action. Here is one of them.

 

Facial Animation and Body Movement test - on A:M Films

 

*Creator currently unknown.

[Rodney]

... and we'll close out this session with a toon render test of the facial expression and body movement test.

 

Toon Render test - on A:M Films

[Bill_Y]

You say you want more Keekat?  No problem.

 

Way back when.... Anzovin Studios let the A:M Community see a few character tests.  Here is one of them.

 

Facial Animation and Body Movement test by Anzovin Studios - on A:M Films

actually, Thats a mistake. We didn't do this animation. This was done by one of the other animators on the paw island project if I recall correctly. We did do 3 in house test animations of KeeKat, but this isn't one of them. I'm looking to see if we can find the tests some place so that thy could be added to A:M films.

[Rodney]

OOooops... I sit corrected Bill.

 

Thanks for the clarification... bet if I dug far enough back in the email folder I could find who posted it....

 

Bill said:

...I'm looking to see if we can find the tests some place so that thy could be added to A:M films.

 

Wow... that would be great. Especially for the A:M Keekat collectors!

[Jigg]

I'll contribute to the discussion since i've spent most of this semester working with KeeKat here at UMass. I found KeeKat to be both a beautiful model to work with, but also a VERY forgiving one. He responds well to some pretty odd positions. It's also quite fun to have the tail to work with, which is pretty unique in comparison to the boy model we worked with as well.... it opens up the door for some creative posing.

 

A huge thanks to Bill Young for providing us with a great model to work with at the school.

 

I figured i'd post my final project for this semester, since it includes KeeKat. Credits go to Bill for the KeeKat model (the bike is my own)... even though i forgot to credit you at the showing, lol!

 

The Fast and Not so Furious

 

~Justin Parker

UMass Senior

[Rodney]

Justin,

You still out there?

 

I just realised that I had never responded to your post!

Very very sorry for the delay... Please forgive. That a fine little animation and best of all it looks like Keekat (and friend) were having a blast!

 

There is also a growing interest in the teaching (and course taking) aspect of Animation:Master so I'm sure any insight into your experience at school would be appreciated.

 

I've started a post to collect information from those of you that have had the opportunity to take classes with Animation:Master.

Here is the link to the post: Taking Classes with Animation:Master

 

Thanks again for your post!

[Rodney]

Here's a bump up to the oldest topic currently in the New Users forum.

(Note that the links in this topic above are long outdated. Don't waste your time clicking up there)

 

I just ran across something that led me to a guy who claims to have designed Keekat: Steven A. Vitale (goes by the handle LOOSETOON)

He didn't design the computer model or have anything to do with the ill fate feature but has stated that he designed the character.

I think he also drew the comic strip which you can see at the Paw Island site here but the signature says E.S. Vitale. One more mystery...

 

Here's an example of the comic strip (pretty crudely drawing but hey... it's Keekat!)

http://www.pawisland.com/toons/comics/12.html

 

In other news, at one point I had the Keekat's sister Allie (unrigged as I recall) and I thought I had posted that to the forum. At a glance I don't see it. At one time it was hiding on Robert (Bob) Taylors site but I couldn't find it there either.

 

(Just two things I may follow up on some day)

 

For those that haven't seen the trailer it was pretty awesome looking especially for it's 2000-2001 timeframe. It would have been a fun film.

 

Here's the link to the trailer on the Paw Island site: http://www.pawisland.com/trailer/large.html

[robcat2075]

Here's a bump up to the oldest topic currently in the New Users forum.

 

I just ran across something that led me to a guy who claims to have designed Keekat: Steven A. Vitale ...

 

...Here's the link to the trailer on the Paw Island site: http://www.pawisland.com/trailer/large.html

 

How interesting! I have never seen that before. I presume most of that is A:M.

 

Somewhere else on this forum is a post from the late Steve Anzovin venting the displeasure that project brought them. But the trailer looks good!

[Rodney]

Disregard. Allie wasn't hard to find once I used the right words in my search.

Look for it shortly in the A:M Exchange Model section.

 

I presume most of that is A:M.

 

Yes, all A:M! I'm sure there was some compositing/editing of film in premiere or some similar softare.

 

Somewhere there is an early SIGGRAPH video where one of the animators takes you through the use of Layers for compositing as most of the backgrounds were not 3D but were painted.

[Rodney]

I don't think we'd established this fact either here in this thread:

 

The illustrious Brian Prince (famous lighter of 1000 hour renders) said:

I was the lead lighting and shader artist for this proof-of-concept animated short produced by ReelFX.

 

In his spare time Brian like to meticulously set up scenes (many from the local area where he lived) and render them.

All the pics here were made by Brian with A:M: http://brianprince.squarespace.com/3d/personal-3d-pieces/

 

This was long before the advent of Global Illumination and all the fancy lighting bells and whistles.