Advice on cat model topology/anatomy please- For animation

simonelr

Hello I've been working on this cat model, and I want to use it for an animation (idle, walk- maybe run & jump- something like that ?)

This is the cat at the moment with a work-in-progress/ incomplete texture:

And here are the shots of the wireframe:

From what I understand there should be some topology rework on the neck and shoulder area but I'm not exactly sure what the ideal setup would be :-)

Brian "Panda" Choi

Needs more edge loops on thee front legs.

Alex_J

I'd double check the width of the cheeks. Seems a bit thin, but that's just me eyeballing it. I made a tiger awhile back and at first I was making the cheeks way too thin. What I learned is that cats actually have some really big cheeks. Depends on your breed of course but I would recommend experimenting with just really overdoing some things and then seeing if it doesn't feel closer to your reference (or, if you are foregoing realism, just see if it just looks better period).

Agreeing with Brian, no question you'll need some loops to support the elbow bend.

Best thing to do is make a rig and test deformation rather than guessing at it. Quick way to rig a cat is Advanced Skeleton, though if you aren't familiar with rigging at all you may need some weeks to familiarize yourself. Or maybe you know somebody who can do it for you.

Even if you can't get a rig accomplished, you can test deformation by creating quick select sets of vertices, then using the snap to projected center to set your pivot to whatever joint, and then bending with soft selection. This is very rough way to quickly figure out if you need a bit extra geo or not at a joint.

For the ears, if you want them to be able to fold backwards you'll need a lot more loops there. As example, this is how much loops I need to make this dogs ear bend as you see below.