Shading and Headturns and Lenny, Oh my.

[ddrake]

Just a stupid little test for fun. Cleaning up character rig, trying out some shading, a smartbone half head turn in there. And still trying to decide what to do with that darn pony tail. (Probably should get her some hands again also.)

[Víctor Paredes]

Nice test. I would love to see a new remastered Lenny using the new features since Moho 5 (maybe before).
Now, what is the problem with the pony tail?

[GCharb]

I would ad a bit of arching to it, but other then that it looks good, as do the pony tail!

Here is a head turn I made for a video tutorial, ASP can handle very complex head turn, so You should be able to get anything look You want from it!

[ddrake]

I would ad a bit of arching to it, but other then that it looks good, as do the pony tail!

Thanks, I agree it probably could use some arching movement to look more natural. I was consider making a separate up/down head turn bone as well, but this was my first real attempt at the smartbone head movement with anything other than a bald shape. I imagine it can be done, but maybe it would influence the existing point movement too much for things like the hair?

Now, what is the problem with the pony tail?

As for the pony tail, I've just gone back and forth many times on the best way to approach it. In this particular example while it looks fine to me I suppose, I don't feel it's quite the most efficient setup.

The ponytail is in the the Head bone layer. The Bone layer itself has a facial rig that controls up/down eye/brow movement, then the dynamic bones of the ponytail. And then a master Bone that controls the turn of all face points, but just pulling the parent bone of the ponytail across the back during the turn.

It doesn't seem that bad at first, but a couple issues with that setup make it not ideal. The first is that for some reason the dynamic movement of the ponytail bones don't seem to be influenced at all by the headturn itself (just sliding the parent side to side via smartbone) Meaning that the sway of the ponytail is only being affected by the tilts and rotation of head and torso. (though maybe I'm wrong here)
But it does look to me like the dynamic motion is responding to more of the UP/Down tilt, rather than what I perceive as the more natural and (presumably larger force) of back and forth sway.

(had another issue like this with bone dynamics with a different approach, but I'll get into that in another post maybe after a few more tests)

And then there's just the issue of layer order depth. Ponytail is contained within the HeadBone ponytail behind everything. Headbone is above the neck/body. But obviously I want the ponytail to sway behind the body. (In the above example I just opted, to make a copy of the HeadBone layer after animation, and place the copy lower in layer order behind torso, and remove the ponytail from the top version.)

[GCharb]

One thing that ASP could really use, are animatable shape order!

[Danimal]

That's one of the better head turns I've seen. Usually any kind of attempt at a smooth turn comes out making my skin crawl, but this one was pretty convincing. Very well done!

[ddrake]

Haha, thanks Danimal

And I've seen the sort of head turns you're talking about. Though, I think it helps a great deal that my character isn't made of too complicated of shapes. Not to mention I'm actually only doing about a 1/4 headturn and not really breaking the profile plane with any features. Anyway, still have some experimenting to do with this, but already getting the sense that this is one of those areas where often times less is more.

Or you know, as that old saying goes "Just because you can do a full profile to profile sweeping head turn with smart bones, doesn't mean you should do a full, profile to prof..."

Well, you know the saying.

[GCharb]

Or you know, as that old saying goes "Just because you can do a full profile to profile sweeping head turn with smart bones, doesn't mean you should do a full, profile to prof..."

Well, you know the saying.

I agree, but these are cool to make!

[sbtamu]

Nice test. I would love to see a new remastered Lenny using the new features since Moho 5 (maybe before).
Now, what is the problem with the pony tail?

LOL Selgin, I spent an hr or so, after reading this thread, and gave Lenny a shot. Man this character is in bad shape. I gave up on the mouth. Maybe someone else can add more to ole Lenny and get him up to par!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qmg6wgriogx2d6/lenny.anme

[Víctor Paredes]

Nice test. I would love to see a new remastered Lenny using the new features since Moho 5 (maybe before).
Now, what is the problem with the pony tail?

LOL Selgin, I spent an hr or so, after reading this thread, and gave Lenny a shot. Man this character is in bad shape. I gave up on the mouth. Maybe someone else can add more to ole Lenny and get him up to par!

Hehehe, nice work! I would love to continue with the file, but now I have to work and, if I'm lucky enough, sleep

[ddrake]

Oh man, what have I started? What have YOU started selgin? I'm not going to be able to resist even though I have work and sleep of my own.

Fine. I'll just succumb. I'm scrapping my project and we can all work collaboratively on "The Lenny Show"

[baphomet]

I made a new Lenny just a couple of days ago. So when I read this thread, I thought I might as well just post it here.

[jezjones29]

This reminded me of when I tried to make him more 'Simpson' like:

[ddrake]

Haha, nice. The "simpsonized" version is much less creepy to me.