Rigging a CAT rig

As I will be using 3Ds Max for animating the character, I went to Youtube, then to the 3D Studio channel. They have a whole heap of tutorials in their library. I will be using THIS video to help me with my Rigging.
One change I will be making is by adding an extra "bone" to the forearm. This was a suggestion by my animation tutor. It stops the entire forearm from twisting when you rotate the wrist. Try rotating your wrist. See how very little of the forearm near the elbow twists? You could even argue that it is simply a muscle bulge making that area move. It's because by twisting your wrist, your Ulna and Radius are moving in your arm, along with the Carpus (wrist).

This image, from Doctor Bruce McFarlane's BLOG, ITTCS, shows how the Ulna (shown in RED) and the Radius bones move when the wrist rotates.

I will update this post with my CAT rigging attempt from following the 3D Studio tutorial, with the adjustment I mentioned.

UPDATE:
I have rigged and partially skinned a model. I have not altered the Envelopes, so there is a lot of strange action going on, like stretching and the thighs morph rather bizarrely.

I have also documented my process with a series of Screenshots.

Firstly I opened the Mesh file up. Spiderman is stood in a Tpose

Selecting the Mesh, I pressed Alt + X to enable X-ray mode. I froze the mesh at this point for ease of rigging.

I created a Base Human CAT rig from the Helpers Section

In side view, aligned the rig with the meshes waist.

CATUnits Ratio alters the height of the rig. I renamed the rig Spiderman_ so all of the components would be names, for example, Spiderman_LeftFoot

I resized the waist to fill out the mesh and help aligning the legs. I also rotated it slightly. Using the Copy and Paste Mirror buttons, I placed the Legs. I also added an extra Bone to the feet. As the model is wearing boots, I don't need to make all five toes.

I align the spine and neck to follow shape of the mesh. Moving the ribcage resizes the spine bones automatically, as does the head with the neck bones.

I resize the ribcage to better fill out the mesh. This will help when it comes to setting the enveloping areas of skinning.

Aligning the arms, I moved the collarbone slightly, then began setting the arms. I added the five digits to the hand and resized them using my own hand for reference, lining up the knuckles. I added an extra section on the forearm to represent the Ulna and Radius bones.

Copy and Paste Mirror to set the other arm.

This is how the mesh and model look when combined. I select the mesh, then apply a Skin Modifier.

I use the Spiderman_Pelvis selection as my bones, then Ctrl+C to select all of the Children files within. This contains all of the bones I need, leaving out the Footpads and the main selector (the triangle with the arrow).
As the mesh is separated for the neck, head and the eyes, I do the same with them. Without this, those sections will not be animated.

As noted above, there are lots of things to be corrected. I have just uploaded this to show my working so far. My next steps will be to adjust the enveloping sections to correct the stretching.

I used the Motion section to animate Spiderman with a Sneaking animation. I have hidden the rig contained within.

LEVEL 5 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND ANIMATION - Storyboarding

I used these Storyboards to create my final animation.

The final image shows a mapping of the scene from a pulled out view.

LEVEL 5 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND ANIMATION - CREATING LANEGAN

Lanegan took a few different forms before finalising the design.
(These images are taken from earlier posts on this blog)

The first form was this Lizard creature. I didn't feel like it fit in with the setting of the prison, so I scrapped this idea.

Thinking of Charles Manson, but demon-like, I created this character that I had been calling Man-Tis, based from his Mantis like blades and the tattoo on his arm. He was wearing his Prison jumpsuit, but didn't look demon enough.

Whilst researching prison uniforms better and capitol punishment, I came across a game for the PS2 called The Suffering, which featured creatures that were nearly identical to what I had designed.

For the demon look, I turned to The Evil Dead to look at the Deadites. The top left is from Army Of Darkness and the bottom right is from the original Evil Dead.

Remembering Ghostbusters 2's Scoleri Brothers (from the Courthouse scene), there were two ghosts that appear in Electric Chairs. Tony Scoleri is the skinny, lanky ghost who I researched further. I found some interesting notes from the development of this character.

Tony Scoleri went through three stages of development. The first stage involved using a full-sized puppet with an articulated head. Mark Wilson built the prototype and video tests were promising but Dennis Muren believed the rotoscope load required would hamper the production schedule. Tony was redesigned to be portrayed by Jim Fye. Tony's head was attached to a skullcap positioned in front of and on top of Fye's head. The collarbone was lowered to elongate the neck and add to the emaciated torso design. Oversized shoes, extra lengths of cloth strips, droopy pants, and finger extensions were added to complete the skeletal look.

Changing the blades of my character became a main thing, as I didn't want to be creating something nearly identical to what was in The Suffering. Marvel Zombies features this panel where Wolverine's adamantium bones break free. Reversing the joint where the blade is attached (from the wrist instead of the elbow) would work well.

I drew out the way the blades would attach here.

 Using the demon faces inspired by Evil Dead, I drew this happy fellow up! Given that he was executed by Electric Chair, I would give him a hood or mask, which would have been used.

This image was to show various features of the character, where the blades break from (the scar tissue), tattoos and various hoods/heads.

 Close ups of the heads.

To add colour, I placed the images into Photoshop.

A 3/4 view of Lanegan. He is extending one of his blades.

Front and side

Lanegan is charging forward, revealig one of his blades as he strikes.

Colour versions of previous images. The final image shows some muscle tone which the creature has

LEVEL 5 CONCEPT DESIGN AND ANIMATION - MERCHANDISE

Promotional give away items. I used Cafepress (a website where you can make custom items which you can buy, and even set up an online store) to create the majority of these.

Hip Flask

T-Shirt

 - I made this mug in 3Ds Max using UVW maps to add the logo. The inner colour I set to match the main colour scheme of the logo.

CMANIM mousemat

 CMANIM glass

 Being a fan of Ice Hockey, I created my own Jersey

CMANIM promo pen (I made this one in Photoshop)

CMANIM Pocket Notebook

LEVEL 5 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND ANIMATION - LOGO DESIGN

I created a Logo Design for myself. CMANIM - Chris McEwan Animation.

Following tutorials I made logos. I wanted them to look digital/futuristic so I started by looking at TRON. Tron Legacy tutorials helped me learn how to use some effects in Photoshop.

Using a different font, I made this one.

Pattern effects I made in Photoshop came into play with this image. Altering the Outer Glow settings to reduce the splash effect, I made the bottom image.

A shortened version, CMA is ideal for forums and Facebook advertising, and it's in keeping with the larger version for recognition.

LEVEL 5 CONCEPT DESIGN AND ANIMATION - LANEGAN LIVES - ADVERTISING

I created a creature that was a demon which was resurrected in a disused Prison. It was summoned by a group of Documentary makers filming about Capitol Punishment in the US.

Early concepts of the DVD cover or Web Advertising and teasers were of an abandoned warehouse with Graffiti on the walls. 

Lanegan Lives was originally something I used for a Tabletop game I play called Necromunda. A character my brother had was called Lanegan and he was killed. The story the game created for him was so awesome, I wanted to have it effect the world of the game, having it appear in my campaign games was a way to do that. Lanegan Lives was just a great name for my film idea, too.

Final concepts were inspired by wallpapers from the website, http://wallpaperswide.com/scary_corridor-wallpapers.html

I often get Backgrounds for my computer from this website and use the images on there as inspiration for my own work.

The Original.

Adding the picture to Photoshop, I altered the colours to give it a red hue.

Altering the levels to give the image an even darker look to make it more scary looking.

When getting to grips with the Levels, I took it too far, but thought that it would be worth keeping a hold of.

I used the images to create a Launch Party Invite and a Web Banner (I used vertical web banner, as I find websites I use, www.newgrounds.com is a great example, use vertical banners to great effect and can be coded to follow the page scroll, allowing maximum advertising.