Nicky Knox Rig

Give it up for your host, NICKY KNOX! I modeled, textured, and rigged this character for my Capstone film, Limelight (read more about it here: https://gannonwhitecapstone.wixsite.com/limelight).

First is the modeling portion. After designing (and redesigning) Nicky multiple times, I was settled on a design that is both visually pleasing and representational of his personality. I modeled him using Maya 2022 and UV unwrapped him using 3DCoat. Following this, I hand painted the textures using Substance Painter. I had fun experimenting with colors and clothing material during this stage. A slight mishap with changed UV maps led to a delay in texturing the hair, but I was able to learn from this and ensure all UVs are complete before diving into textures more.

After the model was complete and properly cleaned up, it was time to RIG! I was most eager about this portion of the project since rigging is a subject that deeply interests me. After spending a semester learning more about the process, I was prepared to bring Nicky Knox to life. After using Advanced Skeleton on my previous film, it was an exciting challenge to create everything by hand. There are IK/FK functionalities for the arms and legs, multiple hand curl controls, and an FK spine (as both the animator and rigger, I decided it would be best to exclude an IK spine since I mostly animate on FK and did not want to complicate the rig). For the sake of time on this project, I used Advanced Skeleton for the facial rig.

This character is designed for functionality in both Maya and Unreal Engine since we will be animating in Maya and rendering in UE5 for this film. I was able to learn what works and doesn't work for a rig going into Unreal (ie: what constraints aren't allowed, no intermediate blendshapes, etc.). I've already begun animating with the rig, fixing a few weight-painting issues as I went along. Stay tuned to see him fully in action!