My First Head Turn Inspired by DarthFurby

wena · Post by **wena** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:55 pm

Hi all

I have spent all day today struggling to make head turns, from a standard pre produced character from Cartoon Solutions.

I have in the past seen some, one of which is from DK.

Nether is head turns in the tutorial of version 6. There is a suggestion that actions can be used for this.

Then I have wondered if the morphing can do the job?

Sorry about asking such questions

Wena

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:23 am

Luckily, just about all of the tutorials still apply to version 6, including DK's. For headturns morphing can do an excellent job, but this is an advanced feature that requires an understanding of actions first. I made a video tutorial about action based headturns here(it's for 5.0 but works the same for version 6):

viewtopic.php?p=39256#39256

But you might also want to do a search on Google about general animation techniques for headturns.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:02 am

Check out Johnofmiddledistance's work in this forum. His head turns are done using a switch layer. The head faces one way, BAM, the head faces another. Doesn't matter though, the material is so good that the "suddenness" of the head turn is completely ignored and in fact a fully animated head turn would ruin the timing of the piece.

I just can't for the life of me understand the time and effort put into making a head turn. Use a switch layer. Or use creative editing of scenes to avoid having to turn the head. No one in the world will care if the piece is entertaining enough on its own.

wena · Post by **wena** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:10 am

I am most grateful to you, both, Darth and Danimal for your advice.

Darth, I have admired your work for a long time, I had seen your video tutorials and started to study them, until the vireos got them would it be possible to go Private Mail some how?

I have been on your blog and not found an e-mail address.

Danimal, I would like to find the work of the person you recommended, it was a John . . . something that the search system on this forum could not find.

Thank you both very much.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:36 pm

Here's a link to one of his posts here on the forum:

http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14440

If done quickly enough, it might even be possible to add a "straight ahead" look in to the switch layer to make the turn seem more realistic but not necessary.

Maybe it's just the lazy guy in me but i just don't see head turns as being so important as to spend hours creating a rig with ten thousand bones and actions and scripts. There's so many more important things to waste time on...

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:41 pm

Wena - My e-mail address is darthfurby (at) gmail.com.

Danimal - I agree that an audience will forgive much if the work is entertaining enough, but mastering headturns the long way means all other techniques will be at your disposal, and the final results can sometimes be stunning.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 12:50 am

viewtopic.php?p=77099
You may want to take a look to this technique too. It's similar to darthfurby's. but you have more options with blend morph when you are animating.

wena · Post by **wena** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:18 pm

Hi selgin

Your head turn is great, is there any one who could write some sort of tutorial on selgin's head turn. I think it could be useful in many ways.

Thank you again.

Wena

wena · Post by **wena** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:57 pm

Hi pumeco

I understand why you would not want to download from a site to get selgfin's head. My computer told me the site is not to be trusted.

I have a copy if you would like it. my email is dian.parry@ukonline.co.uk

I will then send it by attachment to you.

Wena