FREE Webinar - Creating Custom Facial Rigs in Anime Studio

[Fahim]

This is a double post from the announcements section. It has been a very long time since our last webinar, so hopefully this will be of interest to many of you.

Creating Custom Facial Rigs in Anime Studio Pro 9

Presented by: Vern Zehr
Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 11:00AM PDT
Duration: 1hr. (Approx.)
Price: FREE!
Register here: http://mysmithmicro.com/webinars/anime- ... me-studio/

Join Vern in this 1-hour webinar as he shows you how to create your own facial control rigs to animate the faces of your characters in Anime Studio Pro. Learn how to build simple controls for opening and closing the eyes, and for animating the eyebrows. These control rigs will allow you to animate features such as these both separately and/or together.

Do you ever get frustrated with bones over the face of your characters that clutter up the preview while trying to animate? As part of the face control rig, Vern will also cover creating an "External Control Rig" in Anime Studio using the Bone Constraints feature. The "External Bone Control Rig" will eliminate visual clutter allowing for a completely clean preview of the character's face during animation. By making use of a non-rendering vector layer, "control markers" are assigned to the control bones and the bone display can be turned off completely in the Anime Studio preview. Nothing will block or interfere with your view of the characters head and face while you animate. By using the ideas presented in this webinar you can simplify and streamline your animation process.

About The Presenter

Vern, also known as heyvern on the Los Marble forum, has been using Anime Studio since it was known as Moho. When he's not creating animations in Anime Studio he works at HubuMedia.com as a professional Joomla website designer, illustrator and part-time animator. He has extensive knowledge of the application especially features such as character rigging, scripting and complex shape effects, and masking. His favorite accomplishments in Anime Studio involve custom scripts to automate tasks and to aid in complex control rigs for characters. He has worked with Smith Micro and contributed characters to the Anime Studio character library, including Fritz, a character that makes use of scripted control of switch layers for lip sync and changing hair and clothing styles. He also created The Technician which includes a sophisticated head rig using custom scripting and bone constraints for 3D head turns and facial controls.

[drumlug13]

Sweet. Looking forward to it.

[InfoCentral]

Maybe Vern can give us the face ahead of time and we can rig along with him. This would be a first for a SM webinar.

[heyvern]

I have been practicing and practicing to cover as much as I can in the time allotted.
I will actually be creating a simple vector face "from scratch" and will be focusing on the eye controls. I will draw the face and eyes using a basic setup with masking and will demonstrate the whole thing, drawing, and adding the bones. I have a pretty cool simple eye creation technique I will demonstrate, but the bone rig itself can work with any character design.

I have also created a new menu/button script (pro and Debut usage) for automatically creating "bone markers".


I am REALLY excited about this. I plan to have the menu/button script available for download before the presentation along with the "finished face" created in the presentation. I've done it so many times I am dreaming about it now.

[Víctor Paredes]

I'll be there, Vern
I'm sure it will be very interesting.

[Fahim]

Awesome Vern! Looking forward to it as well. We'll have a few folks from the office checking out the webinar as well.

Regards,

Fahim

[funksmaname]

I registered soon as I saw it... look forward to it Vern

[heyvern]

Just a heads up on my presentation...

Because I have to do a lot in a short time, I will be using key shortcuts like crazy. I was able to shave ten minutes just by using key shortcuts for nearly everything instead of clicking on the tool and explaining it too much. I've recorded my practice a few times and noticed that if you watch the tool palette during the presentation you can see the tools selected which helps. I've also practiced it so there won't be a lot of wasted effort, it will go pretty fast. This will definitely be one of those webinars worth a second viewing.

I feel like some kind of athlete trying to get his time faster. Every time I could save 5 minutes, I added in another feature to cover. What really saves time is NOT MAKING ANY MISTAKES and keeping it SIMPLE. I was able to do the whole thing in around 42 minutes without a mistake... of course... I was using the performance enhancing drug caffeine. I hope that doesn't get me into trouble.

I just hope my new neighbor's 3 pitbulls won't be out in the yard barking during this thing. I may throw a couple of steaks in the yard just in case.

[Genete]

Greetings Vern, long time we don't see you around.

if you watch the tool palette during the presentation you can see the tools selected which helps

Unlles you're now in Windows now, you can enable Universal Access > Keyboard "Enable sticky keys" > Display pressed keys on screen to let the audience know what's the keys pressed.
Good luck!
Cheers!
-G

[Lukas]

Nice Vern. We'll be watching on our big studio tv

[arfa]

Nice to 'see' you Vern. I am a big fan of you and all your +++ energy and scripts and input.

So... never done one of these before but looking forward to trying - and seeing hv presentation

I guess my main question is 'will a recorded version be available after?' Vern's comment of: 'worth a second viewing' makes think it will - my memory of some of his bone stuff is that it takes a few goes to 'get it' - at least into my slow cerebellum.

[Fahim]

Yes, a recording will be available - usually within a couple of days of the webinar.

[daney7g]

Looks good really looking forward to watching the vid, won't be able to make the actual webinar.

[Fahim]

Make sure to sign up for the webinar if you havent done so already. See you all tomorrow.

Regards,

Fahim

[Lukas]

Can someone confirm the time is 20:00 GMT+1 tonight? (right now it's 09:00 here, these time zones can be confusing)

I plan to have the menu/button script available for download before the presentation along with the "finished face" created in the presentation.

?