Character Wizard Mods

[penningtons5]

OK I am still not very pleased but with everyone's help am now able to work with the wizard not a rant just a fact.

Below will be the head file and the character after tweaking. I do not see a viable method to use the wizard to fully tweak the end result. IMO the need to do an update and add a few controls that are vital to a useable charter export. I can elaborate on what I see needed if someone wants to point me to where that may be heard and is deemed useful. However Here is a male head to have fun with. Thanks for all the tips to get me here!

Head file here
http://www.mediafire.com/?d0olmj7olelu2u5

Character with tweaks here
http://www.mediafire.com/?g4pg1pp4o02auy4

This picture is just to illustrate how I keep my models proportional. I also captured a shot of what the wizard wanted the eyes and mouth to be on one angle before tweaking in final render.

[penningtons5]

GCharb

I like your Character one small thing IMO. Inside of your Zip folder the folder for the head is named incorrect. It needs to be labeled heads (Plural) not head otherwise it creates a folder by itself that the wizard can't see. This only matters if one wants to import these into the wizard. Again good work thanks!

[penningtons5]

Wanted to balance out my upload here is a woman with some wildish type hair.

Woman1 head file for wizard heads folder
http://www.mediafire.com/?lo7i7vy6hg9d186

Woman after Tweak here
http://www.mediafire.com/?2s2jks986bv25ee

[penningtons5]

Ok I feel alone in here

I am gonna load up one more



Head file for your wizard
http://www.mediafire.com/?o3q8a62g3it9rtc

Full Character with eyes mouth and nose adjusted to fit
http://www.mediafire.com/?aa4d859xa1owjws

[jonbo]

Thanks for the mods Pennington. I know how you feel when you say you're alone here. I've gotten little feedback on most of my mods. But that's okay. The CW needs A LOT of work to make it more viable. As it stands now, it's best use is as a character starter and a place to store body parts such as eyes or mouths. This can be also accomplished just as easily with the content library so no big help there. Since there doesn't seem to be much interest and since it requires almost as much effort to create usable mods as it does to make one from scratch, I won't be posting any more of my mods, I've got other things I want to work on. Anybody who wants can post their mods here, so maybe this thread won't die.

[neeters_guy]

I like the idea of using a 3D model as reference, but only as a starting point. When I have a basic file set up in the CW folder, I follow this iterative process:

1) Adjust the file (eg. JRP_Womanhead2.anme)
2) Save it.
3) Launch CW.
4) Load up the mod file (select via Face tab, Head menu)
5) Examine areas for improvement.
6) Exit CW by hitting Cancel (don't export anything).
7) Repeat steps 1 to 6 until the all views look good.

For step (4), I like to set all the sliders in the Face tab to a pleasing-looking middle, select the file you're modding in the pulldown menu, then save the settings as a preset, eg., test01. That way you don't have to keep resetting manually everytime.

I'll mention generally that CW won't automatically make a face fit together. It's easy to "break" a character's face by pushing the sliders to extreme positions. Patience and a sensitive eye goes a long way.

Anyway, keep it up. The thread is here for anyone who's interested. Thanks for everyone who's contributed so far.

[neeters_guy]

Further notes about the layer structure.

It is possible to layer sort the legs, which is particular useful in the front view.



Because of the patch layers, you need to move all the associated layers of the leg as illustrated below.



Note the legs need to move as a unit; you can't sort just the shin or the thigh because the patch layers overlap. For the same reason, you can't sort the arms behind the torso without breaking the patch on the shoulders. There may be a way to arrange the patch layers differently to make it work, but I haven't thought of a way yet.

PS. For this to work you need to check "Enable animated layer sort" in the Depth Sort tab of the parent layer.

[jonbo]

Hey Neeters, thx for the tips. I do something similar. For the arms, you really don't need the upper arm to go behind the torso, just the forearms and hands. So how about moving the forearm to under the upper arm in the layer order and swap the patch for the elbows to the forearms. Now you can use layer ordering to move the forearm,hand, and patch for the wrist to below the pelvis layer. If you do want the upper arm to go behind the torso, I've used a set-up with duplicate patches, one set for when its in front and one for the back position. I don't move these when I change the order and just leave them at the top of the layer palette. Not the best solution, but it works.

[neeters_guy]

Brilliant, jonbo, that did the trick. Thanks for the fresh perspective!

[jhbmw007]

Hey guys- is the only things that can be customized in character wizard just hands, eyes, mouth, feet? Can the body be changed? I can't find the folder where the body (arms, torso, legs) is stored

[jonbo]

You can only change out the torso and arms and legs after you export them from the CW. All of these parts use layer binding so its pretty easy to change them out.

[jaakay]

Jonbo and Neeters_Guy,

You have done brilliant work with the CW. The first 2 characters that I made were exported from the CW, but then I took a couple of days adjusting them to something that I thought looked semi decent. I am still very new to all this.

Here is the animation I made with my first 2 characters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNLiS-D3yxg

One of the problems with the characters that come from the CW is that they all look as though they have been riding a horse for a very long time (if you know what I mean). What is the best way to address that look? Can you rotate the bones. If I try, will I break the actions associated with that character.

Thanks for the great mods!

[neeters_guy]

...the characters that come from the CW is that they all look as though they have been riding a horse for a very long time (if you know what I mean). What is the best way to address that look? Can you rotate the bones. If I try, will I break the actions associated with that character.

You don't really need to do anything since that is the frame 0 pose. Think of it as the "T" pose that you often see in 3D character setups.

Yes, rotating the bones will cause strange movements with default actions, but honestly, I never use them. I'd much prefer to create them from scratch or modify existing ones and saving them as new actions.

Great work on your animation (your talent 99%, CW 1%).

[jaakay]

That's very kind of you Neeters_Guy, thank you.

[braj]

Thanks everyone for this thread, it was just what I needed. I have a nice bunch of elements that I can work with now, and can figure out how to make my own. I know to a purist animator this is all cheating, and I know I'll still need to do a bunch of work on any character to bring it to life, but this is a great starting point.

I was wondering if there are ways to get head turns included in the CW files, and if not what the quickest way to 'wizardize' these so they can be added quickly. Nothing too fancy, no morphine, but a way to get more included auto-magically. Thanks!