Video Training: How to Make a Head Turn with Actions PART 1

byanfu · Post by **byanfu** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:09 am

160mb isn't too bad, some of the video podcast I download are about that much. I am still download, will let you know my impressions when I get this whole file.

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:16 am

I'm about 75% done with my encoding, just to let you know. That H.264 codec sure is slow!

byanfu · Post by **byanfu** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:16 am

Great work Touched,

You have pretty much single handedly up-sold me on getting the pro version. Actions and the magnet tool area really an amazing time saver. You put a lot of work into this. This for all the work!

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:14 am

Here's a temporary link for you, DarthFurby, if you want to put this one on your site as well. Comes to about 56MB as an mp4, 640x480, mono sound, H264 codec. I think the sound might be slightly out of sync, but hopefully for a voice over it won't matter too much?

http://rapidshare.com/files/25221438/he ... d.mp4.html

Byanfu, I think you meant to thank DarthFurby?

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:42 pm

You might want to release this as a torrent - it would take the bandwidth off your server a bit.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:38 pm

Wow! Thanks DarthFurby!

Some questions:
1) Is there any particular reason to use Easy in/out keyframe interpolation?
2) What devices did you used to record the movie? (I have a digital video camera but I think I cannot reach that definition).

Some suggestions:
1) You have commented in the video the "problem" that happen when you are editing a action and select another child layer then the action edition dissapear. You can avoid to clic to the action window by doing one thing. Once you have finished the edition of an action for a child layer and want to continue editing the same action in other child layer you just need to select the parent layer again and after the other child layer. It will still being editing the same action and you can save lots of mouse movements.

2) When creating the 1/2 3/4 side view action you can save a lot if you use the trick of inserting a copy of other action of the same layer in the new 1/2 3/4 action in creation. For instance when editing the action 12 3/4 side view you don't need to go to the mainline to do that neither copy the keyframes to the frame 0. Just go to frame 30 for example and insert a copy of the 3/4 action inside the 1/2 3/4 side view action. Then add the keyframes in the middle and drag them to frame 1. Delete the keyframes at frame 30 and that's all. You have edited the 1/2 3/4 side view action for that particular layer. Repeat the same for the affected laer and that's all.

I have enjoyed a lot your video tutorial. Also the mistakes were educational. Good english voice and pronunciation (I have understood almost everything!!)

THANKS

Genete

Patmals · Post by **Patmals** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 7:52 am

Great job Darth Furby, nice instructional video (though only part one) Thank you!!

Thanks too to Ulrik but 160mgs is a little big for me at the moment (bandwith restricted for the time being)

And thanks to Touch for the recompression!

I am watching it now.

Thank you guys, and i look forward to more!

knunk · Post by **knunk** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:13 pm

This is great Furby!.... very interesting.

Thanks

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:26 am

Byanfu - Thanks! I'm really curious to see what your animations will look like with actions and a magnet tool in your library.

Touched - That is one amazing compression job. I almost can't believe it. Do you mind if I submit that version to e-frontier? I'm going to remember your H264 codec settings for next time. Thanks a lot.

Genete - 1) No Reason
2) Camtasia Studio
3) Thanks for that tip!!! You just saved me from carpal tunnel syndrome.
4) Another great tip. I think both methods will work well together.

Also I am really glad that you understood mostly everything! But maybe that's because you probably know more about Actions than I do.

Everyone else thanks for watching! After I study some bone rig stuff I'll start work on the next video which will likely be broken up into 2 or 3 more parts to keep the file sizes manageable.

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:44 am

Of course I don't mind, it's your video after all. For the compression I used MeGUI, a free H.264 all-in-one AVIsynth-compatible 2-pass encoder. To convert it from your original Quicktime I used the QT-Source plugin for AVIsynth.

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:47 am

Cool. Experimenting with that H264 codec was a nightmare. Slow doesn't even begin to describe the hell it gave me. Let's hope I survive part 2.

LittleFenris · Post by **LittleFenris** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 5:52 pm

Great video tutorial Furby.

In Part 2 can you use a more complex character that includes some phonemes for the mouth (switch layers preferably)? I'm not concerned if the switch layers will interpolate or not but I think a lot of us use this great feature for lipsync. I think it would give us a more real world example to learn from since most character animation is going to have some lipsync/dialogue.

You could have the character already drawn and just show the viewer how to properly set it up so it takes out the drawing process and cuts the video down by 20 minutes or more. I would love to see your girls headturn in the tutorial instead of the overly simplified blue smiley face (he was good for Part 1 though).

If you really wanted to show the drawing process, I would call that Part 1, then the actions part 2, then use the fully drawn character for Part 3 where you put everything to work. I think its good to use a simple character for the first time you show actions, then use the more complex character for the 2nd and more detailed tutorial on actions for head turns.

Anyways, great tutorial and I can't wait to see Part 2.

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:05 am

Hi LittleFenris, that's the last we will see of Mr. Blue Smiley Face.

Part 2 will cover character construction. We will recreate the girl from my head turn animation and discuss how to prepare a character for morphing and vector movie export.

In Part 3 we will build the final animation(not including the feathers), with all the tricks explained in detail.

Mouth construction for action and switch layer phonemes is an excellent topic for discussion, but it's a big subject that deserves its own tutorial. However, I want to get back to animating at some point. Lets see how things go after Parts 2 and 3. If we're lucky maybe someone else will make that lipsynch tutorial in the meantime.

slice11217 · Post by **slice11217** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 11:10 pm

Hello again Darthfurby!

Thanks for taking the time to create this little tutorial. It was really helpful to have someone explaining what they're doing and why they're doing it. I had played around a little with Actions for a project I was working on last week. I probably wouldn't have done that if I hadn't opened up your turning head project. So, thanks again for the education.

You know, I wonder if a Anime Studio podcast would go over well...

AmigaMan · Post by **AmigaMan** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:53 pm

I want to add my thanks for this video too. I loaded it into my video editing software and created a DVD so I can view it on the TV as I work in AS. It's been a great help.