Winner Choose: Digital Reside Seize & Animation for Anapamorphic “Monkey Band” | Character Creator, iClone, Unreal
Anthony Evans / Digital Puppets UK
Hello, my title is Antony Evans, and I’m the co-founder of Digital Puppets, an animation studio based mostly in the UK. I’ve labored as a personality designer for a few years, specializing in real-time animation, and collaborating with studios reminiscent of Disney, Warner Bros, and the BBC. Along with creating real-time performing avatar puppetry, I concentrate on growing and designing customized characters for shoppers in a variety of kinds.
My workforce and I can replicate any present licensed character or firm/product mascot. Our studio not solely creates movement seize characters for on-line entertainers, educators, and advertising/promoting businesses, however we additionally produce absolutely animated reveals for our shoppers utilizing the characters we design.
Lately, we accomplished a 50-episode collection for the UK nationwide radio station ‘RADIO X’, the place we animated the hosts and remodeled their weekly podcast into partaking content material for his or her on-line viewers. We additionally work with globally acknowledged broadcasters such because the BBC and Cartoon Community, amongst others, although many tasks stay undisclosed because of NDAs.
Idea & Character Creation
Final 12 months, we submitted a clip of “Monkey Band” to the Reallusion 2024 Character Contest and received “Greatest Mocap Use” within the “Particular Awards” class. This contest allowed us to discover new workflows and combine our present practices with modern applied sciences and methods. It’s additionally the inspiration behind this text, the place I’ll be sharing the total creation course of.
The choice to create the Monkey Band stemmed from our need to discover fur creation inside Character Creator. Moreover, monkey characters supplied a novel alternative to make the most of the humanoid base mesh, granting entry to the clothes and hair programs. This allowed us to design distinctive outfits and appears for every band member, thereby, enhancing their individuality.
The idea was impressed by our long-standing curiosity in digital bands that may carry out in actual time. To realize this, we ensured the characters have been outfitted with detailed facial morphs to maximise efficiency throughout dwell facial seize. The band was particularly designed to allow real-time digital avatar management for the lead character, permitting us to stream pre-recorded performances seamlessly. You may see an instance of this in motion right here
The characters have been developed utilizing a mixture of Character Creator 4 (CC4) tools and ZBrush by way of the GoZ workflow. ZBrush was instrumental in including intricate particulars to the bottom mannequin and in sculpting facial morphs. Its capabilities in creating natural shapes allowed for fast exploration of various appears, which drastically contributed to giving every band member a novel persona.
Whereas designing the monkey characters, we utilized preset hair cards to create their fur. Particularly, the “Fur Collar” and “Fur Cuffs” presets from the “Stylings” pack in CC4 proved invaluable. By leveraging the Edit Mesh device, we custom-made and duplicated these hair playing cards to realize a full-body fur impact. For a extra in-depth take a look at the method, you possibly can consult with our video on customizing hair.
iClone Movement LIVE for Facial Animation
When using Reside Face for facial seize, it’s vital to magnify expressions. Overacting ensures that refined particulars are captured, because it’s simpler to tone down exaggerated expressions throughout post-processing than so as to add lacking nuances. Moreover, the standard of mix shapes is crucial. Take time to evaluation them within the Facial Profile Editor, guaranteeing they work nicely, notably for stylized characters just like the monkeys. Modifications to the bottom mesh for a stylized look can generally distort mix shapes, so correct setup is crucial to realize high-quality facial seize.
Facial mocap is very environment friendly and permits for a fast turnaround. For this animation, I mimed the track whereas recording the efficiency utilizing an iPhone and LIVE FACE. Afterward, I reviewed the recording and made changes to refine expressions and mouth shapes. Concurrently, I recorded the audio observe and used AccuLips to generate a viseme track.
By mixing the viseme observe with the expression observe, I achieved extra pure outcomes. The viseme observe ensures correct mouth shapes for speech, whereas the expression observe provides emotional nuance. This workflow considerably lowered the time required in comparison with handbook facial animation.
iClone for Physique Animation
For this undertaking, we utilized the Xsens Hyperlink movement seize swimsuit, which delivered extremely correct outcomes with minimal cleanup. Every character’s actions have been recorded in single takes, one after the opposite. The movement knowledge was processed in Xsens MVN software and exported as FBX information. Importing the mocap knowledge into iClone was seamless—merely drag and drop the FBX file onto the character and choose the Xsens profile.
The primary cleanup concerned aligning the characters’ fingers with their musical devices. For instance, refining the hand placement for the keyboard took essentially the most time. Utilizing an precise keyboard throughout the mocap session would have been useful, as bodily props present clear factors of contact and enhance accuracy in hand positioning.
Listed here are some Dos and Don’ts when animating physique movement in iClone:
DO:
-Exaggerate your actions to make sure the seize conveys dynamic movement.
-Use real-world props so as to add weight and realism, particularly for interactions like enjoying devices.
-Permit ample area for pure motion throughout seize.
DON’T:
-Keep away from miming contact with imaginary objects; it’s difficult to duplicate constant positioning with out actual props.
-Don’t neglect refining hand and finger alignment throughout cleanup, particularly for detailed duties like enjoying devices.
Closing Render in Unreal
The workflow between iClone and Unreal is very environment friendly, particularly with the Auto Setup plugin. This device makes it easy to switch animations to Unreal whereas retaining the unique look of the characters with out the necessity to recreate supplies. For this undertaking, all animations have been created in iClone and transferred to a pre-built stage scene in Unreal utilizing Reside Hyperlink. As soon as transferred, the remaining steps concerned establishing cameras and adjusting the lighting instantly in Unreal.
The Unreal Sequencer is intuitive and features equally to different timeline instruments. One standout function of iClone’s Reside Hyperlink is its potential to routinely configure the Sequencer when transferring animations. On this case, transferring animations for 4 characters was easy, as Reside Hyperlink arrange the Sequencer routinely, saving a major quantity of effort and time.
Unreal was chosen for its potential to deal with giant environments seamlessly. Whereas iClone’s renders have been nice, Unreal’s render provided entry to an intensive stage asset full with pre-configured particle results and dynamic lighting. This allowed us to effortlessly combine our animations into the scene, attaining professional-quality outcomes with minimal setup.
Moreover, Unreal’s real-time capabilities made it ultimate for a dwell present setup. By connecting the Xsens swimsuit, we might carry out dwell interactions, such because the lead singer partaking with the viewers in actual time. This setup additionally allowed us to set off pre-animated sequences, like songs, with a single button press, earlier than seamlessly transitioning again to the dwell efficiency. Unreal’s real-time triggers enabled one particular person to orchestrate a whole digital band efficiency.
Closing Ideas
Engaged on the “Monkey Band” undertaking alongside my brother Scott has been an extremely rewarding expertise. At Digital Puppets UK, we’ve all the time strived to push the boundaries of real-time animation and digital avatars. Utilizing instruments like iClone, Character Creator, and Unreal Engine, we’ve been in a position to create detailed characters and fluid animations with a exceptional degree of effectivity. By mixing motion capture with real-time performances, we are able to ship extremely partaking content material, remodeling easy concepts into polished, professional-quality animations that really resonate with audiences.
Trying again at tasks like animating RADIO X’s podcast and dealing with main broadcasters just like the BBC and Cartoon Community, it’s clear how far we’ve come. Every step of our workflow—from character design to dwell efficiency seize—has been meticulously refined to make sure we’re all the time delivering one of the best. The “Monkey Band” undertaking, specifically, showcases how we are able to seamlessly combine these highly effective instruments to deliver a digital band to life. It’s thrilling to see how these improvements are shaping the way forward for digital manufacturing, and we’re proud to be a part of that journey.
As we attain the conclusion of this text, I can’t consider a greater technique to wrap issues up than by providing you some extra Monkey Band on your leisure:
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