itsjustme

Thanks for the input robcat, I'll have another pass or two at it and see if I can make it more natural.

I like these! Very nice, lots of character.

I went back and changed a facial expression in the last three seconds...I think it's a little better now. DivX encoded AVI once again.

It looks like the new file downloads fine, I guess I came too close to the limit...the file was originally 930k, there may be some overhead that I'm not aware of. If anyone downloaded the bum file, my apologies. It should work now.

After rigging up one of my character's (his name is Bertram) face using a slightly modified version of Victor Navone's face rig (thanks for sharing Victor and thanks to Shaun Freeman for providing a downloadable example), I wanted to see if the changes I made would work before moving on to other things. At first I just did a bunch of facial expressions, but I found that my timing needs loads of work. I decided to try a lip sync test so that I'd have a guide to go by. I've used this as a way to try to get better at animating, feel free to C&C I'm sure I could use it. Anyway, here's a final render of the test that I thought I'd throw out since so many others have shared theirs recently. Only the face itself is animated, there is no body or head movement...it's not much. Initially it was a Quicktime zipped up, but, I was having trouble getting the file to download, so I decreased the size by making it a zipped up DivX file.

What I'm "working around" is my own ignorance...my sentence structure isn't always the best. I'll try to be more clear in the future.

My ignorance knows no bounds sometimes, I misunderstood. I'll try to work around it...and look a lot harder next time I hit a wall. Thanks for clearing it up, the problem was giving me fits...and apparently, blinding me. Sorry to be a bother.

Where the problem comes in is when you are trying to set a key in an action or choreography not when making the constraint. Everything appears to work fine until I get the model into an action or choreography, then I partially rotate the bone and set a key for the frame...that's the key button I'm talking about. If you set a key on the frame of an action or choreography after partially rotating the bone, the bone being controlled jumps. Then if you keep hitting the button to set the key, it jumps more each time for the next couple of times you hit it. The first action has a model in it that has a "rotate like" constraint set to 50%, the second action has a kinematic constraint set to 50%, both are driven by the rotation of a bone. If the constraints are set to 100% this problem doesn't occur, anything lower and it does. I'll have to double-check the kinematic constraint for what you mentioned, maybe I missed something on that. Edit---The model in the second action didn't have the euler limits on it correctly...it should be fixed now. Here it is again as well.

The first action's model has a "roll like" constraint that does this...I forgot to mention that it only does this if the constraint is set to anything less than 100%. The second action's model is set with a kinematic constraint on "bone1" of 50% to the rotator bone. It also only exhibits this behavior when the constraint is set to less than 100%.

I'm not sure if this is just something I'm doing wrong, so I thought I'd ask before I submitted it to Hash. I posted it here so that I could attach the sample project. I have been getting some errors when making a key frame when there's a bone that rotates on the "Z" axis. I put together a project file here that illustrates what I'm encountering. In "Action1", rotate the "redhalf" bone (it should be the only one visible) on the "Z" axis (the limits are set where it should only move that way anyway), then set a key. If you are getting what I am, the geometry will move when you set the key and it will move a little more if you hit the button to set the key again. It does that for a couple of hits of the button. In "Action2", select the "rotator" bone (there should be two visible) and rotate it on the "Z" axis (it should only rotate on that axis as well), then set a key. If you are getting what I am, "bone1" will move when you set the key and it will also move more each time you hit the button (at least for a couple of times). If anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'd appreciate it. I've tried this test in v11t and v11o.

Okay, now I think it's working like it should...you can manipulate each eye individually and both eyes together in tandem. In "Action1" you use either the right or left eye manipulator nulls to move the eyes individually and the center null (botheyesmanipulator) to move them both. This way you can say have both eyes following different objects, meet in the middle and then move together to follow them as they move in the same area. Did that make sense? Well, experiment and you'll see what I mean if it didn't. Edit-- If you were the first or second person to download this file and the controls aren't working correctly, download it again it should be fixed. I think I got the right version up before anyone downloaded, but I could be mistaken. Sorry 'bout that.

Rodney, Here's a two eye setup of the cartoon eye for people to mess with. You can dilate each eye individually or together and you can manipulate both eyes at the same time or individually...there's an on/off pose for manipulating them at the same time in the model's (tooneye) "User Properties". I also applied the porcelain material this time and re-sized them. When you first open the project the "botheyesmanipulator" is set to "on". In "Action1" grab the center null to move the eyes around. If you turn the "botheyesmanipulator" property off then you can use the right and left eye manipulators independently....it could be done better, I'll mess with it again tomorrow.

Well, after posting the eye tutorial I made I was asked about a cartoony eye and thought about applying the spherical constraint in this thread to the problem. It demonstrates a possible use for the constraint, so I thought I'd post it here. It's just a "proof of concept" type of thing, so don't expect it to be perfect...there are plenty of things about it that could be better. In the project, open "Action1" if it's not already open and move the visible Null named "eyemanipulator". That moves the pupil around and deforms the eyeball. To adjust the size of the pupil, there is a "pupildilation" slider in the "User Properties" section of the "tooneye" model.

After talking to Rodney Baker I decided to post a project file that was the result of a discussion on making a spherical constraint with Carl Raillard on CGTalk. Here's a description of what it does: When you open the "spherical.prj" project, it should have "Action1" open and ready to mess with (if not, double-click on "Action1" to open it). What you see is "Bone1" as the bone that defines the sphere, "Bone2" as the bone you would attach any geometry to and "Null2" (at the intersection of "Bone1" and "Bone2") which is the manipulator...there is also a "Null1" that is set so that it isn't seen which helps drive this. When you move "Null2" around ("Bone2" can be moved independently as well, but the constraint only works by manipulating "Null2") you'll see that "Bone2" follows while remaining within the area defined by "Bone1". You can move "Null2" outside of the defined area, but "Bone2" will still remain inside. You can adjust the area within the sphere that "Bone2" can occupy by changing the setting on the "Translate Limits" of "Null1" in the "Pose1" relationships folder. To make "Bone2" able to operate in a larger sphere, you'll need to increase the maximum translate limit for "X" to something above zero, to keep "Bone2" from reaching the center of the sphere, you have to change the the minimum translate limit for "X" to something higher (-14, -13, etc) than "-15cm".