So last week I had a bit of time to devote to a quick little personal project. I wanted to put something together to celebrate Christmas, but knowing that I had a relatively short amount of time to get it done, I didn’t want to get too bogged down in creating a new character.
So I did everything as balls.
Amending the simple Sphere Rig I created for the Dracula Piece, I modeled a very basic Santa, Sack, Reindeer and Sleigh, and got to animating.
One of the most fun challenges I faced whilst animating this piece was how I would convey character and weight to something that is literally a ball. I know this is a fairly common challenge, but one that I haven’t attempted in quite some time.
Again, knowing that I didn’t have a vast amount of time, but that the snowy footprints would be important, I chose what I considered to be a clever and simple solution; manipulate a simple torus object with FFDs. This gives a surprisingly effective result!
One of my favorite parts of this project was adding the sound effects. Finding snowy footprints, swoops, bells, engines and hoof noises was easy enough, and editing them together to meet the animation was a complete joy!
Finally I decided to add a few particles. Using tyFlow, I put together a couple of simple systems to bring some snow and Christmas magic to the scene.
All in all, it’s not a bad piece for a 5 day project. I’m quite happy with it, and use it to share the Christmas joy to all!
Merry Christmas!
Oz
Oz Durose 
Very well done, those FFD tori work a treat! You put in so much in your 1 week too! I need to go back to basics and do the ball exercise at some point, I’ve yet to do it. Happy Christmas!!
yeah, it always feels quite lame when you start animating, and very tempting to skip over it and get into the fun and exciting stuff. I would almost say that it’s an exercise to revisit at different points in your career. Glad you like the piece! Happy Christmas!