New HeadRig experiment, smartbones + switchlayers

[ddrake]

The results of something I was experimenting with this weekend:

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There are a couple oddities when both headturn bones are turned fully, but I think they can be fixed easily enough.

[Danimal]

Awful.

OK, not really, but I felt like giving something other than glowing praise for your work for a change.

It looks very convincing. There's a clump of hair that sticks out when the head is turned, that threw me a little because there's no outline so I wasn't sure where it was coming from. After I saw it the first time though, it all made sense. Outside of that it looks splendid.

[neeters_guy]

Wow, really nice. Which part uses the switch? Can this rig go beyond a 45 degree turn? Again, nice effort.

[ddrake]

Which part uses the switch? Can this rig go beyond a 45 degree turn?

Actually the whole bottom half of the head is switch. Based on the recent discussion of preferred lip-sync techniques, I thought I'd see if I could combine the two to see if it gives the best of both worlds, worst of both worlds, or too setup intensive to be worth it. Turns out, i think maybe all three of those things are a little true.

What I did first was create a resting mouth shape/jaw in a single vector, shape stacking (actually just realized in this experiment that with 2 shapes, say a top shape and bottom shape, you can bind their points together so they move together but maintain their stack depth and have things go in between. Maybe everybody knew that. Never really thought to try that before.)

Then I rigged that layer up to be a fully functional smartbone mouth with a mouthturn bone (which is only controlled by the other "full headturn bone"

Then after all points of the vector layer can be manipulated through the smartbone rig, making use of nested bone control I just duplicated that layer and threw them in a switch layer. Then taking each, manually pulled points to get a starting switch shape for 9 basic phenomes, that you'd use like any switch layer (but all of which are simultaneously adjustable through the smartbone)

What it affords you is extra variation on what starts as just 9 positions. You can do a lip-sync pass, just keying switches, and then go back and pull mouth corners, adjust width etc. to add a little more emotion.

What it costs you is now essentially adding an extra animation pass. A fair amount of either pre-planning or re-adjusting. Inevitable warping in some cases from points being influenced by too many contradictory controls.

And a potential deal-breaker for some...

Can this rig go beyond a 45 degree turn?

No.

Although, that's not to say it couldn't. I didn't attempt it with this rig because I felt it would present a whole extra set of challenges or style re-thinking to get the mouthturn to break the profile plane and still have it function in all positions with the same controls.

I do think though that if the same principles were applied and smartbone control (and everything else really) were kept simple enough, it could be carried on into profile view.

Awful.

You're too kind. :

[patricia3d]

Great Killer 3D character. Thanks for showing

[ddrake]

Thanks everybody.

There's a clump of hair that sticks out when the head is turned, that threw me a little because there's no outline so I wasn't sure where it was coming from.

Yeah, I can't decide which direction to take that. The character actually has 6 shapes that make up the hair: The little front thing, a back section and then each side has two layers with little hair pointies animated during the turn to appear at different depths. Those parts originally had a shading or drop-shadow effect or something that helped distinguish the edges. It looked... only ok...

I had intended to re-visit that and try out some different looks, but then I worked with it in editing so long I got used to the pre-render look and just pulled the shading effects off for the time being. I guess it does look a little odd with NO defined edge, and then hair just seemed to grow as if from nowhere.

I might give it a go with maybe throwing edges back on at least the peaks of those middle sections and taper the widths back to 0 and see how that looks?

The main focus was working with the mouth options and incorporating the approach you mentioned with switchlayers by including the jawline all together as part of each switch position. If not practical or useful info for anyone else, i at least picked up a couple interesting tidbits for the effort

[ddrake]

Just a couple adjustments here and there. Oh, and a body. (No hands though.)

[Little Yamori]

Man, really nice movements. I'm really looking forward to using smart bones in pro. I'm trying to be disciplined and finish my entire animation before switching from debut. probably in another 3 months. (that's why I'm posting and lurking here so much, while I'm rendering scenes I visit the board). Anyway enough rambling, great work, hope to see it in a story.

LY

[Undiscovered]

@DDrake You rock! Awesome!

Can you please do a tutorial on how you did the lip sync and head turn.
It would really help a lot of us out.

Keep up the good work.

[neeters_guy]

And a potential deal-breaker for some...

Can this rig go beyond a 45 degree turn?

No.
Although, that's not to say it couldn't. I didn't attempt it with this rig because I felt it would present a whole extra set of challenges or style re-thinking to get the mouthturn to break the profile plane and still have it function in all positions with the same controls.

Totally agree. Going to the trouble of full or nearly-full turn rigs is unnecessary in most cases. I find it's enough to rig just what I need for a scene.

Thanks for describing your method. Really nice work.

[ddrake]

I'm really looking forward to using smart bones in pro. I'm trying to be disciplined and finish my entire animation before switching from debut. probably in another 3 months.

@YM

Thanks for your nice words and encouragement. I admire your tenacity and willpower to stick with the tools you have to finish your story. I know I'm on the fence with some regret upgrading mid-project regarding experimentation distraction/time-loss and the heft of my wallet.

But since I had an opportunity to take on a new short film project I figured it would be in my best interest to upgrade before delving into that. I'll just have to resist the urge to go back to my other personal project and "fix a bunch of things that ain't broke."

Can you please do a tutorial on how you did the lip sync and head turn.
It would really help a lot of us out.

@Undiscovered

Thanks I know there are already a lot of good tutorials out there on these subjects, (which is how I learned to create this setup,) but perhaps if I can find the time I can put something together. Since I think the results were pretty good, and I'm interested in seeing how the rigs hold up in execution, I will probably do the second character for the project I'm working on rigged this way. Maybe I can do a tutorial as I'm setting that one up...

@neeters

Absolutely. A lot of this comes down to personal approaches and workflow, and what works best for any individual. But I think the most important thing about what you've said is about "rigging just what you need for a scene." My personal tendencies are to keep characters in front and 3/4 views most of the time anyway, mostly because I've always just drawn that way (and probably where my strengths are.)

But even with testing this kind of thing, the fuller range of motion you add (and last night I added the opposite turn to left for this character) the immediate impulse is to have the character make use of that motion, when it is completely unnecessary, and actually distracts from strong poses. In that sense, i find my animations are stronger if I have a character rigged with some range limitations so the actions are trying to make the best use of fewer poses, over poor use of every conceivable pose.

Thanks for your feedback and sharing your methods. Big fan of your work. And also thanks for sharing your "bride head" file a while back as a good learning tool for smartbone mouth technique.

[Undiscovered]

"Thanks for your feedback and sharing your methods. Big fan of your work. And also thanks for sharing your "bride head" file a while back as a good learning tool for smartbone mouth technique."[/quote]



Is there a link to the "Bride Head" File?????
I love Neeters work, and would love to learn from his files. Thank you.

[ddrake]

I'm pretty sure the discussion and link is somewhere in this thread?: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24462&start=15

[3deeguy]

Well done