In this unit we’ll talk about character design, modeling, and rigging through the lens of the avatar as representation of a user/player.
Avatar is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means “descent”. It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth.
Since the 80s the term has been used in sci-fi (Avatar the movie), online communities (the avatar pic), online worlds (the character representing the player), and games (the playable character), with slightly different connotations.
The earlier metaverse, Second Life
Brainstorming
Sketch a full body humanoid avatar for:
1- A particular mood. Pick one
#/media/File:Plutchik-wheel.svg){kind=link}
2- A particular circumstance. Some starting points here
3- A performance art (parody?) using a mixamo mocap animation
Post 3 or more sketches on Discord.
Speed Project 1: non normative base mesh
Base meshes tend to represent “ideal” body types: stereotypically masculine or feminine, athletic or muscular, young, often distinctly Caucasian.
Video games and popular media (ie superhero movies) also tend to center unattainable standards of beauty even at the expense of realism (ie female warriors looking like pin-ups).
Create a base mesh for a non-normative/conforming/stereotypical body type.
-It should be somewhat realistic, not too fantastic or too cartoony.
-Keep it minimalistic: no distinct facial feature, no clothing and anatomical details, just the anatomical volumes.
-You can (should) start from an existing base mesh
-It has to be riggable and animatable: use mostly quads, pay attention to the edge flow and joints, keep it under 3K tris.
Beauty
Standards of beauty change over time, they have very little basis in biology and evolutionary psychology: they are culturally determined.
The Changing Body Shapes of Women Throughout History
The Changing Body Shapes of Men Throughout History
Age
You can find a lot of studies and references for aging bodies, 2d, 3d, photos, sketches.
Just search for x + anatomy.
Body shape
Body Talk: Fun scientific tool connecting language descriptors with visual parameters.
Athleticism
The most athletic bodies actually have a wide variation, rarely represented in pop culture.
Gender
MakeHuman pursuit of the universal mesh topology, genderless, ageless, raceless, the HoMunculus.
The reification of all these features into sliders is weird but probably better than all the alternatives.
Gender, caricature and stylization
The famous case of sexual dimorphism in Disney characters. Can you make a fun cartoon caricature without hypemasculizing or hyperfeminizing the bodies? A thread with interesting images here.
Race
The open source afro hair library by A.M. Darke. Updates here
“Any conversation about black hair is, at its root, about more than the follicles growing on a given body”
–The Natural: The Trouble Portraying Blackness in Video Games by Evan Narcisse.
Watch this intro
(Maybe part 2) Human movement beyond the human form
All prerendered and simulation heavy, but mind what is possible in pre-render CGI usually becomes possible in real time after 5 -10 years.
Low tech but effective
https://glkitty.itch.io/random-acess-character
Speed Project 2
Sketch a non-human character to be animated by mocap data. Pick one of the approaches:
1- Made of rigid things parented to bones (as in random access character)
2- Particle system emitted from mesh
3- Deformed by a humanoid skeleton (advanced: it will likely require weight painting)