Character Design

Creating a Custom Character for your Animation or Film Project

IMC Studios utilizes the DAZ Genesis geometry to create original characters based on references you supply. Character bodies and faces can be reshaped (“morphed”) into an almost innumerable variations of the base male or female shapes. Eyes, noses, mouths, facial and skull shapes as well as body size, age, and musculature can all be modified.

Shape morphs are baked (made permanent) and exported into additional character creation and animation tools, including hair creation, clothing creation, and movement (animation) tools. Our standard format is Filmbox (.fbx), however Wavefront (.obj) and Lightwave (.lwo) formats may also be provided. We can also provide exports to the iAvatar format of Reallusion iClone.

Perpendicular and side angle photos of actors can be utilized to create digital stand-ins based on these actors. Completing a character may also involve idle animation as well as action acquired by motion capture (MOCAP) equipment, allowing IMC Studios Character Design to include actual physical performances by the actor.

Another key to character realism is the movement of the muscles of the face. The movements may be capture using our Facial Motion Capture equipment and software. In this way, actors can capture the nuance of facial expressions in their digital character.

Character creation can save money and provide an extra measure of safety for actors. Traditional stunts performed by stunt persons can be performed by “digital doubles,” avoiding stunt safety issues, the associated insurance costs and difficulty of acquisition. A digital double can generally be developed for far less than the cost of crews and safety measures, and there are scheduling savings of rehearsals for dangerous stunts. Some stunts or action sequences (such as large battle sequences) simply are cost-prohibitive to acquire using real performers.

Ready to create that 3D character for your animation, company mascot, gaming, augmented or virtual reality experience? Use our Character Design Worksheet to collect your thoughts and give us a call! Or simply attach your Character Design Worksheet to an email, and we’ll get a quote out to you!