Modelling and Rigging Marvin Mouse

The model for the character was actually downloaded from TurboSquid. The reason for this was because the model had near enough the same requirements for what was required for Marvin.

Once this was downloaded it was then time to edit the model slightly to meet the desired state. The ears were made larger, and the nose was removed. Also the hands were increased in size as well.

Now the character was created it was time to start rigging him. I firstly set up a biped in the front viewport and dragged it out to the size of Marvin. I then turned on figure mode and edited the size of the bones to fit Marvin's body shape. With the bones looking in place it was time to add the "Physique" modifier to the model.

In order to attach the biped to the model, within physique I had to select the "attach to node" and then select biped01 from the object box. Now the biped is joined to the model.

To test how well the biped fitted the physique of the model I moved about the limbs of the model to see if it pulled the mesh out of shape. There were a few small areas where this pulling of the mesh occurred. At the edge of the fingers, and around the shoes the mesh was pulling quite badly. To sort this out I went into the physique modifier sub-mode and selected envelope. I changed about the radial scale and the parent and child overlaps of the bone envelopes. This increases and decreases the area of which the bones respond to the characters model. As the character is symmetrical I only had to change one side of the model and then use the copy and paste-opposite tool to get the same on Marvin's opposite limb. Once these were all amended respectively it was time to make Marvin walk.

I used the following link to help me to create the footsteps for my character (https://vle.anglia.ac.uk/Modules/2010/EJ315001S/Module%20Documents/Character%20Studio%20%E2%80%93%20Biped%20and%20Physique.docx). I found this document very useful as i had not created footsteps before. I found it very simple as well as all was required for me to do was to click the "create multiple footsteps" button and the footsteps were created. With the footsteps created i click "assign inactive footsteps" this then made the footsteps active and Marvin was able to walk.