Date: December 1, 2021 ◼︎ Client: Picl Animation ◼︎ Platform: Broadcast ◼︎ Software: Moho
Overview
I was brought on board by Picl Animation as a rigger/TD for the 2021 S4C Christmas ident. Picl had developed a lovely textured analogue design that I was tasked with re-creating in Moho. We wanted to keep the benefits of working with vector artwork while remaining true to the concept artwork. After testing, testing and a little more testing, I managed to create some rigs that struck a good balance. Making use of textured vector brushes for outlines and very high resolution paint stroke images for fills, we had the best of both worlds.
When we were happy with how the test rigs looked, I jumped into creating the characters. This involved making vector versions of the concept artwork and rigging them to be as easy to use and as feature rich as possible. Limbs were given IK controls wherever appropriate and some elements (such as the beard for the goats) were given dynamic bones. This allowed the animators to focus on the core animation and they’d get supplemental animation (e.g. a waggling beard) for free. The rigs were also given rotation tools, allowing animators to easily rotate different parts of the body.
This was a lovely project to work on, we had a great team all pulling together to make this the best it could be. Because of this, we produced a lovely animation that S4C were over the moon with. Nadolig Llawen!