80's Troll

[monstermaker]

Hi I haven't posted in a while and since I just recently got LWV9 I started playing with it , I thought that I would post something . This is an unfinished model of a troll character that I designed back in the 80's as an animatronic character. This started as a test for my uv's ,color , bump ,and morph maps. I haven't done the displacement maps yet. I did a quick animation to see how it all worked. No fancy shaders, lights,or rig just testing things out . Thought you might get a kick out of it. I can't seem to get the zip of the animation to up load which is probably just as well as It wasn't all that good just a lot of stuff moving around.

[Carm3D]

I love him! :) Earring is a great touch.

[CMT]

Really great render there! I remember seeing the original picture of the sculpt on another forum. Very cool!

I hope you can get the animation to upload. I'd really love to see it!

[sammael]

Wow thats cool, love the textrure and lighting.

[adk]

Your work never ceases to amaze me Rick ... this guy has loads of character, even tho he's still relatively simple by your standards. Great work & I'm also looking forward to the anim :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Werner]

Good stuff Rick! Lots of personality in this one. :thumbsup:

[WilliamVaughan]

I love this character....I like the idea of only 2 fingers...weird thing is it doesnt seem out of place where on alot of characters it would. Cool set of expressions!

[WilliamVaughan]

I count 3 fingers :D

And it's a very lovely character. great model and facial expressions.


I count 2 fingers and a thumb per hand :thumbsup:

[hrgiger]

It's a matter of semantics. We've been taught from birth to answer the question "How many fingers do we have" with 10. Thumbs do not differ in anatomical structure, merely their placement and directioin (since thumbs are opposable). So, technically the Troll in this case has three fingers but if you want to get into semantics, he has two fingers and a thumb. So you're both right. And wrong.

And it is a very nice troll.

[evenflcw]

Simply superb work. Concept, modeling, texturing, lighting, posing. Everything is great! I can't believe it's _not_ sss! :)

[BazC]

Beautiful work, I love it!

[Sekhar]

Amazing work, so full of life! Especially love the one on right bottom. :)

[Twisted_Pixel]

Great work. Made me smile :)

Managed to even clear my head of all this technical stuff for my coursework, for a few mins atleast.

I too, would love to see the animation at some point.

[peteb]

Hey good to see you back Rick, noticed you've now moved onto Modo (traitor) just kidding.

Great work, love the style very different to your last pieces.

Pete B

[starbase1]

Love those expressions, so much personality in the character!

[Sarford]

Great character! And some very good animaton (by the looks of it)!

[monstermaker]

thanks everyone. I've been out of town and away from my computer for about a week and it was nice to come back to your comments. I haven't been able to upload the zip of the animation but a friend from Zbrush central set up this link so you can see it if you wish.
www.onesmall.com/stuff/trollimation.mov
It's a really slow server at first when I went to it I thought it wasn't working but it finally comes up if you are patient.
If you should look at the animation I have to say first that it was a quick test to see if the morph,color and bump maps worked. I started it with no plan so it's just a bunch of poses and a lot of moving around aimlessly. No holds . I really didn't have a rig other than some bones in the hands which are separate objects from the body . The head, shoulders ,eyes, and teeth are just rotating on their pivot points which I think will be obvious when you see the animation. I really didn't finesse the animation this is just what I laid on the first pass. Ok I guess that is enough apologizing . It does have a couple of moments that are worth looking at I guess. Anyways thanks for looking

[Sarford]

Wow, I'm impressed!

Is this all done in lightwave? Cause I notice some people on this forum said you can't do character animation in lightwave.

[monstermaker]

Hi, I had a bit of time so I made a body and cloths for this guy. Now he is awaiting a rig, which by the way I know nothing about so he may wait for some time.
Starford yes the animation was all done in LW .I've since improved and added to it but I thought I'd move on to giving him a body and hopefully a proper rig

[WilliamVaughan]

LOve teh hairy vest/collar.....he looks like he is all dressed up for a big event!

[noyce]

Fantastic! The coat looks a little bit like the one my wife wants for Xmas : )

[kmaas]

Love the expressions - they're just so expressive!

[anim8r]

WOW! Great character and fantastic modelling/rigging. I love the expressions :D

I'd fatten up his hands and feet, but that's just me :)

[monstermaker]

Hi I spent some frustrating time on the rig. After a bunch of work I when I ended up trying to animate him ,I got rid of most of the IK and just key framed the bones instead. I wanted to do some lip-sync and found it very difficult to do in LW. It took me forever just to find out how to get audio into LW then was surprised by the fact that you really can't scrub through it and figure out precisely where things are. I ended up opening the audio in after effects and figured out the timing there .It worked out OK but it was more work than it should have been. Is there a plug in that makes audio easier to use in LW?
If you want to see the animation go here,
http://www.monsterbaker.com/monsterstuff/time4take3compressed.mov.zip
it's about 20 megs and will take a while to download so you have to be patient. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts but be kind it's my first lip-sync attempt.

[WilliamVaughan]

You might like Mimic's timeline easier to lipsync with. It's a bit more visual and plugs right into LW

[TripD]

Man this dude rocks! I think I saw him at the Renaisance fair last year.

Two fingers up!!