
He looked simple, but the presence of one single supporting limb for all body movements made the search for references in living nature almost impossible. On our planet there is no active mobile predator with one support point.
As a result, all movements had to be invented almost from scratch. We decided to take the manner of movement from animals, which prefer jumping as a method of movement – kangaroo, carcasses, sparrows, etc. D.
How such a creature can attack? – This was another important question.
After long thoughts, we decided to borrow the combat style of the Royal Cobra. Animing and reducing all this good together, but an exciting task, because not every day the animator has to cross the tushka, royal cobra, kangaroo, sparrow and champion in the bags in one animal :)
Download like a tushkik, attack like a cobra!
Ok, with the nature of the movement of the jump, we decided.
On this basis it was possible to start building a character skeleton.
The main question that needs to be kept in the mind when creating a skeleton is looking for a reasonable balance between the number of bones and the degree of revitalization of the model! Too many bones in the skeleton of one character, especially if the character is flock – bad for the performance of the engine.
Therefore, there is a constant struggle for each bone.
The animator is constantly forced to reduce the amount https://bookmakersnotongamstop.co.uk/review/spinscastle/ of bones to a minimum.
Man has 33-34 vertebrae. The vast majority of the gaming creatures of the vertebrae-no more than 4-5. This, as a rule, is enough to ensure expressive flexibility of the body.
Fortunately, in almost all mammals, the spine is divided into just 5 departments – cervical, chest, lumbar, sacral, tail.
1. The plumage of the jump.
I divided the feathers into groups and assigned to each group only one bone. This allowed the feathers the necessary animation, while not strongly loading the engine.
5 double bones per 14 feathers – in general, not bad. It would be less, but feathers are one of the main characteristic elements of our jump, indicators of his mood, so you can’t save much too.
2. The neck of the swamp jump.
We wanted to make him a lengthening neck. The best solution for this would be to give the bones of the neck Squash & Stretch animation. But, due to certain restrictions, we cannot “plunge and sausage” the bones of the skeleton, and I decided to make the neck “honestly”, of several folding and extending segments. (Here the saved bones of feathers from the first point just came in handy)
Now our jumper will be able to catch the midges flying by without unnecessary effort without getting up from the sofa :)
TOLike, Giraffe has exactly the same amount of cervical vertebrae as almost all other mammals – 7.
3. A pair of bones in the chest, For heavy breathing in the particularly dramatic and exciting moments of the life of jumping :)
4. The foot of the jump.
At first I wanted to build a poultry jumping foot.
However, then it turned out to be better and more effective just to turn the usual “human” leg backwards, so that the knee looked back. This gave the best control over the foot during animation.
By the way, contrary to common opinion, the knees in birds are not at all “looking back”. What seems to us with a knee is actually an ankle of a bird’s leg.
It was not possible to save on the jaws especially, since our handsome man has 9 jaws around the perimeter of his mouth. 5 bones per 9 sins – enough for comfortable biting, chewing and yawning :) Also, on the perimeter of the head, the monster is equipped with seven eyes, each of which also had to give one bone. As you know, eyes are a mirror of the soul, so you should not save before your eyes.
So, Mr. Prygun presents the animator with a harsh lesson: sometimes it’s easier to prioritize a monster with a hundred legs, a dozen arms and clusters of tentacles than a “simple” armless body on a single leg.
Of course, we tried to provide our jumping with a wide variety of animations, so that he would fully exist and enjoy life in his beloved swamps.
Beware! The jumpers are insatiable predators and, at the first opportunity, are always ready to bite a random lost traveler ..