How I built a human in 3D - 2 decades ago !
About twenty years ago, when my computer still sounded like a jet engine and 3D Studio Max felt like software designed by aliens, I made a simple human animation. At the time, it felt like I had unlocked secret CGI powers. With Intel Pentium CPU and a few hundred megabytes of RAM.
Building My “Human”
I started by shaping a basic human figure—at least that was the intention. What actually appeared on my screen looked like a potato that had hopes and dreams. I kept pulling and pushing vertices, trying to convince this digital blob that it was supposed to be a person. Sometimes it looked weird. Sometimes really weird. At one point, I swear it started looking like me, which was slightly insulting.
Installing the Skeleton
Next came rigging—giving my potato-man a skeleton. This is where things went wild. One wrong bone adjustment and the entire body would twist like it was auditioning for a horror movie. Knees bent in directions that knees should not bend. Elbows teleported. The spine occasionally decided to try yoga. But eventually, I convinced the skeleton to behave like a normal human instead of a cursed action figure.
Playing with Mocap
To make the character actually move, I imported some motion capture data. This was the first time my digital creature started walking, running, waving—doing human things. It was oddly emotional watching him move for the first time… like watching your kid take his first steps, except your kid is made of polygons and absolutely does not listen to you as always.
Rendering: The Waiting Game
Finally came rendering part, the scanline rendering line by line my creation was a proud moment. Eventually, I had a short video of my character moving around, defying all the physics laws I had unintentionally broken.