Moho Animation Forum

Hey all,
I'm fairly new to AS(Pro) and one of the things that got me so excited about the program was Heyvern's demo reel on Youtube. If any of you have seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, he does some CRAZY stuff with bones/rigging that I didn't even know was possible, such as "rigging" the face (eyes, eyebrows, mouth, etc). Does anyone know if he has any tutorials on here that talk about how he did all that stuff?

Anyway, thanks for your help =)

Heyvern has not published any detailed documentation about his most complex rigs (eg., The Technician). As you know, he favors bone-implemented rigs with no manual point animation. Consequently, his bone setups contain hundreds of bones. (One user graphicanime tried to duplicate the setup.) To be sure, his results are impressive, but it appears they are not very portable.

I highly recommend the construction method described by Amigaman here:
http://blog.smithmicro.com/blogimages/C ... Studio.pdf

The "best" animating workflow is to use bones and point motion in a series of passes, in combination with storyboards as guides (a method described by Amanandink).

It goes something like this: (1) Working with bones only, keyframe on key poses, then (2) breakdowns, then (3) follow through and overlapping motions; (4) lastly, tidy up shapes using point motion. (Note how systematic this is, you can save at each step and revert if you mess up or want to change the timing, etc.)

It's not uncommon for the final timeline to have keys in every frame (cf., jwlane's work).

Understanding the difference between key poses, breakdowns, tweens will help you immensely using this method. It's a basic pose-to-pose method.

This sounds more pedantic than I intended and I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm, but basically I'm saying don't fall into the trap of spending a lot of time trying to find the "perfect" rig.

Hey Neeters,
Thanks for the input. Yes I agree about the point-level/bone combo. Seems the most efficient and flexible to me. I'll check on the link you posted. Yah I noticed the thread was a bit old, but since it was from this year I figured I'd give it a shot haha.

I guess it always comes down to 1) spending more time initially on your rig or setting up your actions/switch layers so that later work is quicker and easier, or 2) Not making your initial rig as complex, saving some time there, but possibly having to spend a little more later.

Vern's rigs do seem incredibly complex and time-consuming, initially, but it looks like it would save tons of time later on because you could create almost any movement quickly, with just a few bone tweaks. I mean he's doing stuff with bones manipulating mouths, eyes, etc. that I'd never even thought of. Anyway, thanks again and see you around the boards =)

PS. I tried the Amigaman link, but it takes me to a blank page. Does it work ok for you? I'll try again later.

Hmm, it's a pdf file, so do you have Acrobat installed? It usually installs a plug-in to your browser.

It's appropriate to spend the time to make a solid rig. I only question using one that's hasn't been explained well. Amigaman's method is by no means fast and simple; it takes time to build and he recommends building multiple views. But it is the most detailed and clear step-by-step guide you can find. He's a working professional and his method works, what more can you ask for?

I recommend you to work with blend morph. It keeps things clear an can be easily created and changed during your animation.

Hey Neeters,
I got the page to work correctly. I had done the 30 day trial of Photoshop CS5 recently, and when I deleted it, I guess it deleted my Adobe Reader too. Weird. I reinstalled and could view the page. Thanks again. I'll be taking a look at it today after I eat a LOT of food =)

And Selgin, yes indeed I have done a little bit with blend morphs so far, and they are SO COOL! I'll be working a lot more with them, for sure. Thanks for the input and hope you two have a nice Thanksgiving

PS. I just looked at the first couple pages of the PDF, and it turns out I had it on my computer already. I downloaded it recently but forgot about it. So now I can actually look at it =)

Matsuemon wrote:Hey Neeters, I got the page to work correctly. I had done the 30 day trial of Photoshop CS5 recently, and when I deleted it, I guess it deleted my Adobe Reader too. Weird. I reinstalled and could view the page. Thanks again. I'll be taking a look at it today after I eat a LOT of food =)

If you are on Windows, you should download Foxit Reader. Adobe's reader is shamefully slow and consumes a lot of resources. Foxit just does the work bluntly.

Wow, I've never heard of Foxit. I was on a windows computer until a few weeks ago, but now I have a Mac.