Turning head with blend morphs

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:02 am

Hi, I'm playing around with blend morphs and did this very simple adjustable turning head
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?hnj2yzueumy
or http://sharebee.com/5f856ea6

Blend morph possibilities are huge. For example, you actually can make a talking head which turn the way you want, just adding the actions to the layer on the switch.

You can make more complex characters, but if they include layer order animation, then they won't be so automatic as this example. Anyway, it still being great and just need little adjustments for work. here is a little example I haven't finished yet of a more complex construction
http://sharebee.com/401f76d0

PD: sharebee is a server where you can upload files at once to several servers like rapidshare, megaupload, zshare, etc.

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:28 am

Any chance of an animated gif?

I'm interested in the file but I dont have time to look at it as I'm at work.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:54 am

I have the trial, so I can't export the animation. This gifs were made saving the preview, so you can't see the gradients.
The first one was very fast made, the turn is far to be perfect, but works as example.
The second is more complex, each turn requires intermediate modification, but still being relatively easy to construct and animate. I'm planing to have a face which can turn on 180 degrees horizontally with a wide range of vertical turn too, and that the character keeps talking meanwhile turns.

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 6:14 am

That's pretty interesting dude. Thanks for posting

I actually really like the first one.
Looks great

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:42 am

The first one is great

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:15 pm

Nice work! I meant to comment on this in the other thread. You and I were thinking the same thing. I'm also looking to build a fully functioning blend morph head model similar to yours. The 2nd has more functionality, but the character design in the first is better.

That's what I love about blend morphs because it's like an alternate solution to the pose bone script(which I would love to see finished some day), but it relies on actions instead of bones to define the poses.

twillis · Post by **twillis** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:21 pm

Those look great. Neat trick. The first one especially looks like the sort of animation I want to learn to do (I'm a rank beginner).

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:00 pm

Here's a little explanation of how they work.
There are 9 one frame actions, each one representing a pose, as shown in this picture

This actions could be just five, but for a better transformation I decided to add the intermediate (left up, left down, right up, right down).

It could seem difficult, but it's not if you have planned your head first. Draw each pose in a paper, be sure your character still being the same in all poses. Think you gonna do this just one time and with this 5 or more poses you will obtain an infinite range of head poses.
You can make more complex characters using mask, groups, bone movements or whatever. Each thing that can be animated, can be interpreted in an action and, of course, with blend morph.

A tip: actions only transform the movements which have keyframes marked, so be sure you mark the keyframes you want to establish.
Maybe could be an action in which you don't need to move a point, for example, but if you don't mark a keyframe for that point, you will get strange blends, because that point actually won't be moved on the action.
Sorry, it's hard to explain that to me, maybe someone with a better English can do it for me.

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:17 pm

That's really cool.
Thanks for posting it.

(I haven't had a chance to download ASPro6 demo yet,
let alone have a play with it

)

Rudiger · Post by **Rudiger** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:51 am

Being able to overlay head turns and/or facial expressions while a character is talking is the Holy Grail of 2D facial animation as far as I'm concerned, and ASP6 has given us a way to do it! Thanks for putting together such an awesome demo of this amazing new feature.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:19 am

Rudiger wrote:Being able to overlay head turns and/or facial expressions while a character is talking is the Holy Grail of 2D facial animation as far as I'm concerned, and ASP6 has given us a way to do it! Thanks for putting together such an awesome demo of this amazing new feature.

Thank you!, I'm so excited with this as you are.

Patmals · Post by **Patmals** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:24 am

Very cool, Selgin! I miss your old Avatar although i think the new one is just as cute

pumeco · Post by **pumeco** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:08 pm

selgin, I'm curious about the head on the right; did you have to keyframe the ear on a switch layer to make it go behind the head, or did you manage to get that to work inside the blend morph itself?

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:52 am

pumeco wrote:selgin, I'm curious about the head on the right; did you have to keyframe the ear on a switch layer to make it go behind the head, or did you manage to get that to work inside the blend morph itself?

It's made with layer ordering. each morph has its own layer ordering. No switch included. But it must to be adapted by hand, depending of the movement. It's not automatized, there is no way to make it automatically, at least you be Vern

.
You can download the file and take a look.

pumeco · Post by **pumeco** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:16 pm

Thank's for the info!

I downloaded the first head to take a look, but the other head is on sharebee so I won't be downloading that one.

Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you that I'm playing with a similar technique. I've managed to get the ears to switch automatically 'inside' a blend morph. It's not working exactly how I was hoping, but it's getting there, and it works automatic even without scripting!

There's a problem with it though, I'll likely post a thread about it later for you experts to look over. I'm new to this so I'm probably forgetting to do something really simple.