The Happy Lion
The Happy Lion, a humanoid character, has been created in Maya for a 3D animation project. This is the same character created in 2D with the Flash program shown in the Character Design page. The image of the Happy Lion has been created in the Fall 2013 semester at East Los Angeles College in the courses taught by Professors Clisset and Libonati.
For any questions, please send me an email ([email protected]).
The 2D Image and 3D Model of the Happy Lion
The Initial Modeling Process
To start the 3D modeling process, a side view plane and a front view plane have been created in Maya; two separate materials for each of the planes have been created; scanned JPEG images of the line works of the Happy Lion’s front and side views have been applied to the materials; and the materials have then been applied to the planes. Next, Polygon creation tools have been used to create the 3D model, using the planes as references, during the whole modeling process from the frontal and side view ports respectively.
Applying Texture Maps to the Surfaces of the 3D Model
The texture maps for the surfaces of the 3D models in this project have been created in Photoshop from scratch or from modifications of digital photos. For Maya to work effectively with the maps, the later should be saved as JPEGs with a small size less than 1,000 pixels by 1,000 pixels.
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Alternative Texture Maps for the Nose and Mouth of the Happy Lion Character
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Create Blend Shape Models for the Movement of Mouth
Blend Shape models, actually duplicates of parts of the 3D model to be modified separately, could be created to help animate parts of a 3D model without modifying the original models per se. This is a handy technique for creating animation of complicated parts of a 3D model without affecting the integrity of the original model.
Figure HL-11A. Five Blend Shape models created for the movement of the mouth, based on the shapes of the mouth when pronouncing certain sounds such as “A,” “E.” and “O.” To create these models, select the original model of the mouth first, press the Ctrl(Command in Mac) and D keys simultaneously to duplicate it and move it away with the Move Tool; repeat the process four times; next, right-click on a Blend Shape model and select the Vertex option from the short-cut menu; next, select relevant vertexes and use the Move, Rotate and Scale Tools to change the shape of the mouth.
Figure HL-11B. To use the Blend Shape models, first switch to the Animation environment select the original model of the mouth with the five Blend Shape models, go to the Create Deformers-Blend Shape menu to connect them; the Blend Shape window opens with the five Blend Shape models listed;. To create animation of the mouth, select a frame in the timeline (Figure HL-1C), and drag the slider up or down from relevant slot of Blend Shape window.
Creating Joints for the Movement of Body Parts
Joints could be created to manage the movement of different parts of the model during the animation process or simply as a tool to modify the model, for example, to bend a finger that has been created straight.
The Happy Lion Holding a Flag
Edward Locke's SuniSea Studio
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