Scared Herbil

Due to the variety of motion we included in our storyboard, we knew that it would be nearly impossible to create a single 3D model which allowed us to animate Herbil. Certain aspects of the character such as the detachable arms and flailing tongue were radically different from his original state, and so we planned our first model in a way that would let us modify it halfway through.

Once we had finished the cute model, the first step in creating the scared model was to separate the arms from his body. We then smoothed the resulting holes in the mesh down to small points which could later be attached by tubes. The majority of the work that went into modifying the model went into these arm-tubes. We knew that manually animating the flailing motion of Herbil's arms would be a very tedious and difficult process, and so we used Maya's dynamics system to simulate the motion for us. In order to achieve the effect we wanted, we used Maya's nHair system to create dynamic curves and attached cylinders to the control points on each curve. This made the cylinders twist and deform according to the curve, making the animation that much simpler for us!

A similar method was used to create the tongue, although in this case, the tongue is actually just a single hair sticking out of the center of Herbil's mouth. It's a bit strange when you think about it, but the simplest solutions are often the best.

As a result, we now have a completed cute Herbil model, as well as a completed scared Herbil model!