Togo: The Trail of Mercy - 3D Modeling, Rigging, and Animation

Project Duration: 1 week

VR Experience developed in Unity for Oculus

Programmers: Sudha Manigundam, Atul Goel

World Designers: Srujani Kamineni, Vasant Menon

3D Character Modeler, Rigger, Animator: Euna Park

3D Set Modeler: Eliza Zhang

I became involved with a project known as "Togo: The Trail of Mercy," a location-based entertainment experience that follows the true story of the sled dog that saved Nome, Alaska during the 1925 serum run. The dog who got the credit for the run was Balto because he ran the last 70 miles.

The experience was an immersive experience, with a themed ride queue complete with cold air, projection mapping, and other theatrical effects. Guests were then able to travel with Togo through the thrilling and dangerous Alaskan wilderness while being chased by a bear in a virtual reality experience, on a motion actuated vehicle using pneumatic technology to give the feeling of being on a real sled.  

I joined this experience as a 3D modeler and animator, specifically for the modeling, rigging, and animation of the characters necessary (dogs, bear). This was a pretty intimidating challenge given the time constraint we were facing to bring the experience to life. In considering total hours, I put about a week's worth of work into this project, applying my previous experience from my 24 Hour Quadruped challenge to the animation. This was my second time attempting quadruped animation, and the modeling and rigs were tougher because there were a greater number of polygons to work with than I had before. 

All models and animations were created using Maya 2018. They were exported as FBX files to be rendered in realtime with Unity during the experience. 

Final model and weight-painted rig. Texture for the husky was outsourced to a student outside of the project. 

Walk and run cycles for the huskies. Both cycles completed in 6 hours. 

Final model and weight-painted rig. Texture for the bear was outsourced to a student outside of the project.

Walk and run cycles for the bear, created in under 5 hours.