How would you do a lamp character?

[Sascha Selent]

Hey community.

I have a question regarding a non-standard-character. How would you do a lamp character like scribbled below? Basically it is a 3 part IK chain with the head attached to the end.

Is this possible in CA?

Thank you all and kind regards.

Sascha

 

[alank99101739]

I would start with an easy approach and see how it goes. Take you drawing, erase the background (so it's transparent), load into char3acter animator, then put sticks where you don't want bending (along two straight sticks, along edges of head, across base). Then put a pin on the base and a dragger on the head and see how it goes.

''There are more advanced things like hinge joints, but doing the above is pretty quick and gives you a bit of a feel without much work.

[Sascha Selent]

Hey community.

I would say this is a successful first test 🙂

I basically followed Dave Werners IK Limb tutorial, et voilà...

I like Character Animator 🙂

[natevplas]

Looks great!  I'm guessing you're just treating the support part of the lamp as an IK leg?  You should add some long "Sticks" to keep the straight parts from getting bendy.  Otherwise it looks like it's working perfectly!  You could even add a dragger onto the "foot" to make him jump 😄

[Sascha Selent]

Yeah, it's an IK leg. I wanted to add sticks, but by accident I forgot and know what: I do like the bendyness! I tried sticks then, but the character looses a lot of "toonieness". I think I will stick with the bendy style.

What I really do like: the character already has "character". Even with his simple structure - only with his eyes - I can give him soul and uniqueness.

And I'm sure the lipsync setup will be funny 🙂

I will update...

[Sascha Selent]

Ah, I forgot to say: I added s dragger to the head making the lamp a perfect jumper 😁. I would assume adding a dragger to the foot should make it possible to lift the leg - making him an even better jumper 😁😁.

[oksamurai]

Looks great!

[Sascha Selent]

Hey Dave.

I have a question: is it possible to add an analogue joystick as pupil-controller (or in general)? That would give hell a lot of more control...

Thanks and kind regards.

Sascha

[oksamurai]

If you can map it to a mouse, then yes - one of the eye gaze options is mouse & touch input, where the eyes will follow the mouse around. A couple of years ago some users were experimenting using game controllers for characters but I don't remember if anything came of it. But there isn't any easy solution I know of currently.

[kev_mon]

This is looking great!

Regards,
Kevin