Rigging
Leonie's rigging process always starts with the analysis of the characters, the assets and the animation style needs and peculiarities.
In Shim’s case, its character design and personality needed me to concentrate more on the body mechanic aspect than the facial rig. I started with a basic biped rig, and I then installed an IK/FK switch on both legs and arms. Once this first step was done I added attributes to match the specificities of the character. Shim being quite short and stubby, we needed a way to make animating him easier, so I built an automatic stretch in the legs and in the spine [a]. Another particularity of his is texture rigging. At some point in the film, Shim’s hands go from a textured green to a smooth with a textured black transition. To rig this transition I worked with Noée who created a ramp which I connected to controllers. Once the rig for the body was built, I started skinning.[b][c][d]
After the body rigging was done and Noa was able to start animating, I went on to rigging the poncho. At first, we wanted to use an auto-collision similar to a skirt rig, where when the legs move, they move the part of the poncho they are in contact with with them.
However, the poncho was too short for this type of rig to work. I went back to the drawing board and decided on a more classic rig for loose clothing. I placed chains of joints all around the collar, kind of resembling an umbrella’s ribs, and simply connected controllers to each joint allowing the poncho to be moved all around the collar and the hem, but also in the middle of the fabric and along the arms.
For the hat, it was basically the same as for the poncho. I just added a root controller so that we would be able to take it off Shim’s head and constrain it to the hands.
I finished the rig with facial rigging, which was very simplified thanks to the hat hiding half of the face. I used clusters that I converted to blendshapes to rig the mouth and the lips [e][f].
For most of the molds I went for the simple route and used chains of joints, each of them connected to a controller so we could animate them swinging.
[a] "So I started with a basic biped rig, [I placed a 3d object named a joint everywhere an articulation is needed in the skeleton, then connected a controller for each joint.]" ;
[b] controllers [These are standard geometric shapes commonly found in most software. For example, the diamond is used for rotation and is connected to the hands or feet. The trapezoid is used for joints and is generally located at the knees or elbows. As for the sphere, it’s a controller typically used at the neck, head, or hips.] ;
[c] skinning [This is indeed the method used to attach the character's skin to its skeleton.] ;
[d] IK/FK switch [IK : "Inverse Kinematics", FK : "Forward Kinematics"] ;
[e] clusters [Clusters are a type of deformer commonly used in the rigging process. This particular deformer allows for control over the points of an object, such as the vertices of a polygon or the CVs of a curve.] ;
[f] blendshapes [It's a feature found in every 3D software that allows bones to be linked to polygons. To do this, you paint a zone of influence on the geometry for each bone.]
I (Manoa) really enjoy rigging so I couldn’t wait to start this part of the project. I learnt so much both purely in rigging and in problem solving. In the end the rig worked well and was easy to animate.
The rigging itself being very straightforward was something I liked about it. Shim’s rig was really simple, just like his personality and design ! This made it easier for me to determine what I had to do in what order.
As for the molds, it was fun to adapt this very simple rig to the different shapes and of each mold variety. Do they jiggle ? How tall are they ? Will they be in the storm ? Does Shim interact with them ?
Acting & Animation
When animating I like to imagine the movement first. I focus on the way I would decompose the action, how the weight balances, how the environment influences the scene, etc… Shim is a round little guy. Despite its body shape, it is very delicate and soft so I had to factor that in for the animation. We had filmed a lot of references already in order to visualize the movement. Analyzing the reference videos is very important to deconstruct and understanding them in order to make the animation process faster and easier. The main goal is to make sure the poses of the body are organic and accurate, while keeping in mind the way Shim moves is altered by his mushroom-like nature.
Facial expression
We decided very early on that the focus of our movie was the gardens, so we agreed on a more discreet character design for Shim. His eyes are hidden beneath his hat, only the lower half of his face is visible. A lot of the time, facial expressions were not central in the scenes. That said, I used my own face as direct reference in order to understand how the muscles around my mouth and nose were working. Sometimes other times I would use precise scenes from specific films as references.
Action-heavy scenes were the funnest to animate. Non cycling movements are usually the easiest, as I feel I have a lot more freedom about the way they carry out.