Character Descriptions for Editing

Ben
Full Name: Benjamin Johnson
Description: Ben is a boy whose game play is interrupted by a power outage.

Physical Description
Age: 13
Hair: brown
Eyes: brown
Distinguishing Features: freckles
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 103 lbs

Motivation
Goal: Ben wants to be the best at Tactigon 2000.
Plan: He plays Tactigon 2000 any chance he gets, including when his parents think he's asleep or doing homework.

Character Background
Family: Ben is the only child of Steve and Rachael Johnson. Steve is an accountant for a large IT company, and is often out of town on business. Rachael works as a part-time librarian, is active in PTA, and volunteers time for after-school programs for elementary kids. Steve and Rachael's busy schedules often leave Ben home alone, which is just fine by Ben.

Education: Ben attends middle school, where he usually receives mediocre grades. He's never failed a class, but usually puts in just enough effort to pass and no more.

Habits/Vices: Avid gamer, collects anything and everything related to Tactigon 2000, obsessed with Tacticon 2000, he has posters, miniatures/action figures, t-shirts, underwear, and even their name-brand cereal.

Personality: Ben has a somewhat reclusive nature in real life. He'll talk to people, but rarely starts the conversations. Ben's real love is Tactigon 2000, which he will discuss avidly with anyone who will listen (or even pretend to listen). Ben is active in several online discussion boards and fan clubs centered around Tactigon 2000.

Likes: Tactigon 2000, video games, Mountain Dew, pizza,

Dislikes: Math (unless it relates to figuring out the best stats for Tactigon 2000), vegetables, cola, pizza with veggies,

Movement Analysis
Energy Level: High, excited, animated, sudden, as long as Tactigon 2000 is involved. Slow and depressed otherwise. Somewhat clumsy.
Emotional Temperament: Excitable, overzealous, and obsessive about Tactigon 2000.
Power Center: Somewhere between his hands and his head.
Body Tension: Tension in shoulders and neck from so much time hunched over computer.
Weight of Character: light and quick
Physical Disability:
Attitude:
Before-> Ben has just come home from school has been playing Tactigon for 4 hours (since he got home from school), and is finally almost to the highest ranking in Tactigon 2000. Ben plans to achieve the highest ranking today.
Current Mood: Ben is unspeakably excited.


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Squeak
Full Name: Squeak
Description: Squeak is a raccoon-like critter who unplugs the power line to Ben's house.

Physical Description
Age: 3
Hair: reddish gray
Eyes: brown
Distinguishing Features: big ears, prominent teeth
Height: 2'6"
Weight: 40 lbs

Motivation
Goal: Squeak wants to play Tactigon 2000.
Plan: Squeak plans to unplug the power to Ben's house, in order to sneak in and play Tactigon 2000.

Character Background
Family: Squeak was born to fairly normal critter parents, whose primary goal was to find food. Squeak's parents were not supportive of his interest in human entertainment, calling them "uninteresting" and "a waste of time". As soon as he was able, Squeak set out to find his own fortune, and eventually arrived in the neighborhood where Ben lives.

Education: Squeak can open a trash-can with a locking lid in under 3 seconds. He's also very dexterous with his paws.

Habits/Vices: Compulsive collector of junk.

Personality: Squeak is a devious little critter, and will go to great lengths to get what he wants. Once set on a plan, Squeak will pursue his goal with single-minded focus. Squeak is also very curious, and is fascinated by tv and video games. Squeak spends much of his time studying humans, and is very knowledgeable about human behavior. He uses this knowledge to manipulate people so he can achieve his current goal.

Likes: cheese, shiny objects, sugar, human-watching

Dislikes: rat poison, people who leave their trash-cans inside, lawn mowers, corn on the cob

Movement Analysis
Energy Level: high, like a coffee-drinking squirrel
Emotional Temperament: wired, quick, short-viewed, but obsessive and focused on a goal
Power Center: creature of the heart
Body Tension: nervous wreak
Weight of Character: small and quick
Physical Disability:
Attitude:
Before-> Squeak has been planning and trying to get in to play Tactigon 2000 for quite some time. Today, he's finally ready to make his move.watching Ben play Tactigon 2000 for 4 hours. He is fascinated by the moving characters, and the boys apparent ability to control them.
Current Mood: Obsessive, interested, goal driven.

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Tactigon 2000

Tactigon 2000 is a science fiction fighting game where player can battle opponents with a variety of weapons, armor, and special moves. Before each match, the player selects the armor, weapons, and special moves based on the options currently available to them and who their opponent is. Some gear/moves are available to any character, and others are restricted to specific characters or are unique to one character. Each battle results in ranking points, which can be spent to purchase new/better armor, weapons, and special moves. The game features many types of weapons and armor styles, including: guns, swords (of various plausibility), thrown weapons, bows/crossbows, sticks, and various others.

Squeak Pics

Some quick screenshots from my blocking with Squeak.

Sitting position, note the stifles (knees...kinda) are turned out, the hocks are turned in, and the feet are splayed a bit.


Sitting from the side


Leaping


Standing

Rig Concerns

Hey all,

This post is mostly pertaining to rigging issues.  I don't know how much y'all have played with Squeak yet, so please comment if you have anything it add, or if you have some workarounds for any of the problems I had.

First of all, great job on the Squeak rig so far, Erica.  I know this is a work in progress, so I'd just like to share a few issues I ran into when messing around a bit.  My main concerns were with the shoulders and the haunches.

When in a slightly crouched position his shoulders appear to be too low, positioned almost on the belly.  I realize this is where the leg geometry actually meets the torso on the mesh that Beau and I provided, and it is probably difficult to work with. We were trying to give Squeaks chest some volume to make up for the lack of dynamic fur.

I think the problem is that there is an extra bone.  I believe the circled joint above should be removed and combined into one bone perhaps, or maybe aligned like the twisting bones in the forearm.

Notice that in this position the shoulders seem appropriate, when the two bones I mention above are nearly straight.  If they were combined they would look more or less like this no matter the orientation (minus the weight map adjustment).

My other concern is similar, but with the pelvis.  When close to his neutral position, the hind legs look great and move realistically.  However, approaching the sitting position some problems arise.  It seems like the hip joint needs to be raised a bit, positioned more closely to what would be the anatomical hip joint (roughly where the move manipulator arrows are sitting above).

The problem is that it is impossible to get is butt any closer to the ground without the ankles or knees going crazy.  I know this is an extreme position compared to Squeak's neutral stance, but I think it might be necessary for many of his poses and actions in the film.

Here's a more illustrative shot of what i'm talking about.  The knees tend to buckle in and the bottoms of the feet are pretty stubborn about staying flat.

Anyways, I don't want to seem like I don't appreciate the rig, just wanted to point out a few bugs.  I'm sure I have a lot to learn about character modelling.  Everything else is moving great.  I especially love the ears and cheeks!

Improved Squeak Rig

Improved Squeak rig on the server, now with twist joints in the front legs (to allow for better rotation of the hands). Also, I made a shelf for Squeak, and put this on the server in the Squeak folder as well. The Squeak2 shelf is probably the one you want to use, as this one works with the way we've referenced Squeak into the scenes.

Squeak Rig

Ok, updated Squeak rig is on the server. It should be pretty good, but might need some tweaking depending on how crazy you get with it. Let me know if anything doesn't work right...and take a screenshot or save off the maya file so I can see it. No guarantees I can fix it, but I'm still interested in seeing what happens.

Edit: The tail, spine, and eyebrows all have the ability to switch between FK and IK/splines. They default to FK, so if you want to change to splines: click on the blue "+" near what you want to change to IK (I tried to place these intelligently), change the attribute FKIKBlend to "10", and then the control attributes for FK to off (or 0) and the IK control attribute to on (or 1).