A thing I made for BYUIS. It was this series about teaching angsty high school kids to chill out and use their energy for good things instead of drugs and giving up.
It's an Adenosine Triphosphate molecule I made for a BYU Independent Study biology course.
In reality, the energy is stored and released from between the second and third phosphate molecules (when ATP is expended, it becomes adenosine diphosphate and relies on free phosphates to "recharge" itself back in to ATP), but they wanted me to make the electricity stuff all over it to make it more exciting to look at. I was sad about that but I mean whatever I guess.
Modeled, shaded, animated in Maya.
While I'm at it, I'll post this less-whelming video I made of an oxygen molecule doing its thing:
Modeled and rigged this in two weeks. I'm working on posting a more dynamic animation, but it's gonna take some time with school and all :(
Here are some shots of the rig for you to look at with eyes:
It's pretty hardcore.
Automatic contrapposto mechanic - when you rotate the hips to either side, the shoulders counter automatically. This is weighted, as well, so you can decide how intense you want the effect to be or turn it off altogether.
The spine is what you call a "flexiplane" which enables the preservation of volume as you squash and stretch it around (gets fatter at squash, thins out at stretch). Makes for great twisting functionality, as well.
An autoclavicle rig allows for the clavicles to follow the elbow at a fraction of the shoulder's rotation. This, like the contrapposto, is weighted and can be customized or toggled as needed.
Speaking of the arm, it has a secondary bone in the forearm keyed to rotate at a fraction of the the wrist to prevent the geometry from pinching unnaturally as the wrist is rotated.
It's hard to really show in one picture, but the feet have some pretty versatile control functions that let you do quite a lot pretty simply.
Scapula simulation wings in the back.
I kind of went all-out nuts with this one. The eyelids have both automatic and manual blinking options (so you can do only one or the other lid if you want), rotation of the eyelid to make up for his lack of eyebrows, a parent-switching mechanic so you can make it follow the head or remain focused on a specific spot and pupil dilation.
The teeth, also, have switchable parents so they can fall out if you want (as you see at the end of the video. I intend to add this feature to the eye, as well. Maybe.
