Animating My Penguin - Using Autokey, Morpher, Rotate/Move Tools and Super Spray Particles

Moving back to 3D Studio Max, I used the morpher tutorial documented previously to help me apply movement to my penguin's facial features. Firstly, I made copies of the penguins eyes, eyebrows and beak and alligned them next to the model. When I come to render the animation properly, I will hide the other features. Figure 1 shows an example of the different faces used in the animation clip.

Figure 1: Different faces ready to morph to the parent

Once the morpher was applied to the parent, I used the "Select From Scene" button which allowed me to choose what I would like to morph with the current target. Once these were listed, it was possible to see the transitions using the scrollbar.

Next, I had to import my WAV monologue into 3D Studio Max, like in the tutorial. Figure 2 shows the track editor with the sound file displayed on it:

Figure 2: Track Editor in 3D Studio Max

The trickiest and possibly most annoying and frustrating part of this project now is to lip sync the penguin's beak with the sound file so it looks like the penguin is speaking the words. Auto Key was used during this process and Figure 3 shows the timeline with the keyframes part way through the task.

Figure 3: Keyframes shown on the animation timeline.

The following figures show the different movements and expressions achieved after using the morpher tool.

Figure 4: Beak open

Figure 5: Beak closed

Figure 6: Penguin becomes angry at the end of the clip. Steam created using super spray particle emitters, wind emitters and drag. 

Figure 7: Image of the penguin model in the inspector view before it was rendered to show the positions of the particle emitters and the wind/drag.

Music was added to the video as an intro and an outro to add more to the theme of villainicity. The choice in music was a royalty free operatic version of the popular nursery rhyme, "Pop Goes The Weasel". The reason for this choice is that this is a children's villain so children would be able to recognise the soundtrack, whilst it brings something eerie and new to what already exists. Various existing villains (looking at previous research) have "theme songs" like Cruella Devil. 

Unfortunately, the finished video is too large to upload to blogger, see the submitted CD to see the final result! 
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References

MacLeod, K., 2012. Pop Goes The Weasel. [music download online] Available at: <http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=horror> [Last Accessed: 03/05/2012]

Khan, A., 2010. Creating Realistic Cigarette Smoke in 3D Studio Max. [online] Available at:
<http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/3ds/cigarette/> [Last Accessed: 03/05/2012]