I got the idea for Monkey's Uncle from the desire to animate something with full bodied uninhibited movement. The rest came from listening to one of the abscure but funny songs off one of the disney soundtrack cd's my wife owns also called Monkey's Uncle. The song brings to mind austin powers dancing and beach-boyish guitar riffs so it really got me thinking "what if i actually animate a monkey doing monkey stuff to this song?"
Round about the same time I was trawling the pages at highend3d when i came across this lovely monkey rig (Monkey 1.0.0) with a fresh look and completely unrealistic proportions so as i started picturing what kind of environment such a funny creature would live in and i realised that if it was going to be anything it had to be something with a soft handpainted feel. the next logical step was to actually sketch and paint up something appropriate for the job. after about 6 minutes (at work when everyone else was on a lunch break) i had something i really liked that i could imagine my monkey scene to take place in:
The next step was to actually put some of my motion ideas down on paper, and after unsuccessfully storyboarding a sequence at my desk at home i found i had much better success in different places around the house and within an hour i had this (roughly drawn) sequence from which i could move forward:
On a strictly technical note, the piece is being animated in Maya 8.5, the final output resolution will be 1024 x 576 pixels and the piece will be 41 seconds (1075 frames at 25 fps). The monkey rig will be keyframe animated with IK and FK but unfortunately neither Wade Ryer (the monkey's creator) nor i thought to add Maya Character Sets to the rig so i am having to finish it predominantly the hard way.
Anyhow, i project that the piece will be finished soon so hopefully i will be able to share the finished clip in the next few days! hope everyone is having a great day!
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