Buddy Boom

This was a project that myself and two others worked on at Studio Liddell. It was for a client that wanted a nice pitch video that they could use to visualize how their IP could exist as a short-form CG animation.

My job was to rig the three characters. They all shared a common body rig, but each had bespoke elements such as the frog's eyes, the mouse's tail and the bear's fringe. Each character also had a full set of facial blend-shapes. The limbs leveraged a custom hybrid IK/FK system driving spline IK that allowed both the arms and legs to be posed in a conventional manner and then further deformed in a "bendy" manner. All the limbs could also be broken away from the body to allow things like the shoulders to be placed very specifically for a given pose.

The following images show the character line-up in Maya, as well as a posed snapshot of the Suzy (mouse) rig that highlights some of the deformation capabilities.