animating a tail smoothly

[denisa]

Hey guys,

Would like to hear your opinions on this.

I am trying to animate this tail but it is not going as smoothly as I hope it would. I created a series of bones and a mesh around the tail so I can bend it. I am using Flexi Binding for this, but it doesn't come out as smoothly. The tail itself has quite a pattern on it. What I found myself doing is creating a SB, and have the tail bones move with SB, that way I can if the mesh is acting in certain places I can fix it.

I am wondering how you guys would approach this?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/115003080 ... ed-public/

[Víctor Paredes]

You can try assigning the tail to a mesh and then attaching that mesh to a path and then animating the path.
It's a bit tricky to rig and make it work, but it can give you good results.

[Maestral]

How about Sketch bones?
Set the bones and the mesh and animate with Sketch bones tool

[Greenlaw]

I always use Sketch Bones for tail animation. If you watch either of my two DreamWorks Animation reels and see a 2D character with a tail, that's animated using Sketch Bones.

Tip 1: When animating a tail, sketch from the root to this tip for ever keyframe you create. This insures that the interpolation between key poses will move smoothly and predictably. Also, don't worry too much about the timing at first, just get those key poses in there so the tail moves smoothly. You can easily retime the tail animation after you have those key poses doing what you want.

Tip 2: When binding the tail, I first select the layer(s) that make up the tail, the bones, and then apply Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding on the layer(s). This makes the tail bone art affected by only the tail bones and nothing else, and the deformation is very smooth. But when you use Selective Flexi-binding, you'll want to make sure all the layers are using some kind of discreet binding method, like Selective Flexi-binding, Point Binding, or Layer Binding. You generally want to avoid the default Flexi-binding unless you really want all the bones in the rig having some affect on those layers.

Hope this helps.

[denisa]

You can try assigning the tail to a mesh and then attaching that mesh to a path and then animating the path.
It's a bit tricky to rig and make it work, but it can give you good results.

Oh okay! I did assign the tail a mesh, but what do you mean by attaching it to a path? like a bone?

[denisa]

I always use Sketch Bones for tail animation. If you watch either of my two DreamWorks Animation reels and see a 2D character with a tail, that's animated using Sketch Bones.

Tip 1: When animating a tail, sketch from the root to this tip for ever keyframe you create. This insures that the interpolation between key poses will move smoothly and predictably. Also, don't worry too much about the timing at first, just get those key poses in there so the tail moves smoothly. You can easily retime the tail animation after you have those key poses doing what you want.

Tip 2: When binding the tail, I first select the layer(s) that make up the tail, the bones, and then apply Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding on the layer(s). This makes the tail bone art affected by only the tail bones and nothing else, and the deformation is very smooth. But when you use Selective Flexi-binding, you'll want to make sure all the layers are using some kind of discreet binding method, like Selective Flexi-binding, Point Binding, or Layer Binding. You generally want to avoid the default Flexi-binding unless you really want all the bones in the rig having some affect on those layers.

Hope this helps.

Thank you! I tried the SketchTool! It's much more easier, but i still get big deformations? The way I went about it is I made a mesh for the tail and binded the point of the mesh to the bones. I selected the bones and the tail layer and applied "Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding", the tail is masked as well, so do i have to attach those point as well to the bone?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/115003080 ... ed-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/115003080 ... ed-public/

[denisa]

How about Sketch bones?
Set the bones and the mesh and animate with Sketch bones tool

Good shout! I tried that and I still get big deformations

[Maestral]

My guess is it's because of the automatic mesh triangulation.
If you can, take a photo of the straightened tail / mesh it / rig it - and voila!

As is, I'd edit the tail piece, make it straight, import it back in Moho / mesh it...

And of course, you can just adjust the mesh in a way which would prevent too much of distortion. Add somewhat more points to the mesh, on the bended parts. It would enable you to smooth out the deformations.

[Víctor Paredes]

I have been using this technique for a while now.
Now I'm recording some tutorials for Cartoon Saloon, so I decided to include it on the list:

[jahnocli]

Very good, Victor - thanks for that!

[DK]

Wow! That is very clever Victor. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers
D.K

[denisa]

I have been using this technique for a while now.
Now I'm recording some tutorials for Cartoon Saloon, so I decided to include it on the list:

That's amazing Victor! Thank you so much for finding the time to record a video! I think in this case your solution would work if the tail was straight? Initially my cat is a plush toy that I took pictures of and found that I can straighten her tail, so I'll give that a go and update you! Thanks

[Víctor Paredes]

That's amazing Victor! Thank you so much for finding the time to record a video! I think in this case your solution would work if the tail was straight? Initially my cat is a plush toy that I took pictures of and found that I can straighten her tail, so I'll give that a go and update you! Thanks

I'm happy to help
The original tail image of this tutorial was curved. I just used Photoshop pins to make it straight.

[Greenlaw]

Good shout! I tried that and I still get big deformations

What Maestral said about auto-triangulation might be the cause of what you're seeing. Moho's internally generated meshes tend to be low-res. When I see faceting in my deformations, I create my own mesh. you can do this using the Grid tool with the desired number of segments, or just plot the points manually. I usually draw a box and then use lines to chop it up as I want using Weld Crossings and then deleting the extra bits.

Before you do this, make a test render of the character's tail. When using the internally generated mesh, Moho will display a lower res version in preview but it will render a higher res one. If the render looks good, don't worry about it.

(I wish there was an option to see what the auto generated mesh looks like; that would make it easier to determine if a custom mesh is needed.)

Also, the number and strength of the sketch bones can make a difference in deformation smoothness, so you might experiment with that too. Tip: Generally, the number of bones should follow the number of segments in the mesh along the length of the tail. Obviously, this only applies when using a custom mesh.