Pacman Suggestions

[Víctor Paredes]

I'm teaching AS to my girlfriend. In her second class, she wanted to animate pacman and some ghosts. I thought, ok, it's not too complicated, it's ok for her second class.
surprisingly, draw and animate a Pacman was very hard, she took a couple hours to make the simple pacman eating movement.
Here is the result (youtube), if you want to see (actually, i'm proud of my pupil ).

She get it work with a lot of points, but the circle keep irregularities, it's not perfect. So I started to think which one would be the best way to make a Pacman, and I have three proposals.

Here is the Anme file (mediafire)

- Pacman 1: one circle with several points and a lot of controled bones (not much as vern, but several). the movement works good, but the circle keep irregular.

- Pacman 2: Three half circles. one for the half of the head, and two for the mouth.

- Pacman 3: One circle, a mask for the mouth and another layer to make the border of the mouth. all controlled by 3 bones.


I'm thinking and have no idea of a simpler way, but I'm pretty sure there must be one at least. Have somebody a suggestion?

thanks.

[Genete]

Definitively pacman 3. I was about to say that it is the only one that can die easily.

[slowtiger]

If it's a character without outlines I'd do it with only two half-circles, bound to bones which pivot around the center of the circles.

[heyvern]

If it's a character without outlines I'd do it with only two half-circles, bound to bones which pivot around the center of the circles.

I would go with this one as well. Very simple and easy to animate. No need for a mask. Although you might have trouble getting the circles to line up "perfectly" when they rotate.

A masking option would be best using just the one circle, and an expanding "wedge mask" to create the mouth. The circle never moves or changes. Only the wedge shape is changed using either a bone or a switch layer.

Unfortunately you are never going to get PERFECTLY smooth motion of a "pac man" type character with just one shape as in the first option. You could get very close but not using bones. I would use a circle with LOTS of points and either actions or switch layers to make the mouth open and close.

By rotating the points that make up the mouth shape very carefully around a central pivot, maintaining a uniform distance between them and adjusting the curve value of the points you could keep that circular shape. It wouldn't be perfect but it would probably be much less noticeable than it is in your example.

I wouldn't bother with that technique though. the other two are so much easier.

-vern