Computer Graphics World

■ ■ ■ ■ 3D Printing•Animation typing: making sure there are no holes in the mesh, that it is a complete solid mesh, that the limbs are not too thin, and that the pose is op- timal." Even Tofu's tattered clothes had to be redesigned because they had been too thin for the toy production. Using LightWave, along with Eyeon's Digi- In addition to generating an animated short, William Vaughan had his creation printed as a 3D model and then produced as a toy. comic/toy show in Florida and saw his scare bear concept at someone else's table. "Th ey actually did a great job with it. I was impressed," says Vaughan. "I talked to the cre- ator and jokingly told him that he had stolen my idea." Now that concept materialized before him as zombie teddy bears, called Teddy Scares, created by Joe DiDomenico and Phil Nannay of Applehead Factory in Philadelphia. "We hit it off immediately, and they were completely open with every little detail and information about how to make a toy," he continues. As Vaughan began working with the duo on a Tofu toy, he came to a conclusion: He had to make an investment in his beloved zombie— and the company. So he bought into Applehead and become a partner. "It's the best decision I ever made," he adds, as it eventually led to sev- eral Tofu toys and other merchandise, as well as a continuation of the Teddy Scares brand. Th e fourth star ascended at Th e DAVE School, where Vaughan was teaching. Earlier, New Line Cinema had optioned the Teddy Scares property, but the deal had fallen through. So Vaughan suggested that DiDomenico and Nannay let the students at the school create an animated short starring their Teddy Scare characters. "It was a good opportunity for them, and a good opportunity for the school, since it was such a fantastic property to work with," he says. (Every year, the class is divided into groups, with each tasked to complete an animation project prior to graduation.) So, un- der Vaughan's instruction, a class at Th e DAVE School created an animated short centered on the Teddy Scares, using LightWave along with Adobe's After Eff ects for compositing. The Long (and Short) of It Eventually, Tofu and his zombie cast became fodder for a class as well. "Tofu is very special to me, and I didn't plan on it being done at 54 October/November 2011 Th e DAVE School. Th e students do really good work, but I had decided that I would rather not have them make the short unless it was exactly what I wanted. But, I had this one class and knew that if anyone could do it, they would be the ones to pull it off ," Vaughan says. "And they did. I was blown away by their work." Th us the students became the fi fth star in the Tofu constellation. Th e Tofu animated short, called "Tofu the Vegan Zombie: Zombie Dearest," is an all-stu- dent production. At more than eight minutes in length, the animated short is essentially a pi- lot, and Vaughan has a portfolio that includes concepts for 13 episodes, as well as an online Tofu game (www.tofutheveganzombie.com/ game) and a growing cache of products based on the property. When the students set out to make the short, they were starting with a character that had already been created—and was in the process of being manufactured. "Tofu has a distinct look, so they had to be sure that the other characters, especially the two humans in the script, were attractive and fi t into the same world as the zombies. Also, they had to design the rest of the characters so they could poten- tially be made into toys later down the road," notes Vaughan. Interestingly, the original Tofu—which was what the students had used for the short—had to be redesigned slightly for the toy. Th e char- acter was modeled in LightWave using subdi- vision surfaces, then exported as an STL fi le for 3D printing to a Z Corp. machine. "He had a very skinny neck, ankles, and wrists, with thin fi ngers," describes Vaughan. "I had to make slight changes to be sure the mold worked and for the articulation. You can model anything in 3D (software), but you can run into a problem during production. I now have a checklist for any toy that I am proto- tal Fusion for compositing, the students (under Vaughan's direction and supervision) brought Tofu, along with four other characters plus the two humans, to animated life. Th e animation was done all by hand—Tofu's animation rig was a basic setup that involved IK for the legs and FK for everything else. Th e facial setup used 100 percent morph targets, done using Endomorphs in LightWave. Texturing was a mix of LightWave's built-in procedurals as well as image maps painted in Adobe's Photoshop. All the lighting was achieved with NewTek's built-in lights. Th e characters are extremely detailed, as are the environments, in which every object is made of geometry. "All the backgrounds are modeled; there are no matte paintings," Vaughan points out. "Th e environments are out of control polygonal-wise in their detail— each shot contained millions of polys." Th e sheer number of assets in the short is astounding—the fully furnished rooms in the house, the fully stocked lab, the book-fi lled library, the food-laden dining room. Th rough- out, there are statues, paintings, ornate mir- rors, and more; if you look closely, you can even see a replica of Vaughan's head in a jar on a shelf and a few Teddy Scares here and there. Perhaps even more astounding is that the students were able to complete the work in just two and a half months. "Th e deadline was crazy, but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity so that if we got picked up for a TV show or movie, we would have a lot of the assets to work with," says Vaughan. According to Vaughan, the students did not cut any corners in the production. "You are handed a team—one that never made a movie before—and you are at their mercy in terms of the quality [of animation] they produce," says Vaughan. However, while Vaughan and another instructor, Lee Stringer, were devising the script, they didn't steer clear of any con- cept, model, or scene. "Th ere was not a single thing that we said, 'No, we can't do that be- cause the students wouldn't be able to handle it.' In fact, it was just the opposite. We said, 'We are going to make them handle this.' " Vaughan recalls. For example, the script called for Tofu and Lab Monkey #5 to board a Big Wheel while one of them held a Slinky-like gun. "Th ere

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