NancyGormezano

okey dokey - Only thing left is to fix tongue - I'm still not satisfied - but it works good enough for now. Changed the bones, modeling, - I think I just need to reposition it. Will think on it more. Still have to do the mbp,e, etc poses, and some more body tweaking - but I'm happy - no...MORE than happy with face rig - I really like the controls, geom bones - seems to work well with a very low spline model (as well as denser mesh models). here's what the lip weighting looks like for the sample model you provided: If you'd like to use it for your face weighting document, let me know and I'll clean it up (to use better bone names) or you can have the photoshop file. I think it would help make the lip weighting description be clearer, as to a sample goal. What I REALLY REALLY like is the naming convention you have selected - using % for face bones is terrific - makes it very easy to find bones. And it's also easy to find bones in general as there are not a zillion billion to scroll thru. Just FYI - I found for my model - which has less lip splines, and is more cartooney - that these weights worked better for me: As for the camera - I have it on in both 1 & 2 % - so there aren't any keys for it in the relationship - so I don't have a problem with it. I haven't encountered any intermittent problems with other settings either yet. Thanks again.

I am not experiencing an intermittent problem (yet) with nulls showing or not showing up after I fixed the face control relationship (15e). Before I fixed it - it appearred that from the settings that A:M was doing what it was told to do: (see images posted above) The L/R's were set to OFF at 48, and there was no key for ON at 24, The masters were set to ON at 48 only. I have made it such that at 1% all the l/r controls AND master controls are visible and at 2% ONLY Master controls are visible. That seems logical to me - I would want access to ALL controls or just Master controls. I will watch for any intermittent funky problems. I'm now wondering if my problem before, when I thought I needed to reposition the face controls, after fixing the relationship, was that I just couldn't see the teensy weensy teeny tiny itsy bitsy L/R nulls on the face mesh. - I guess you are expecting animators to die before they are blind ?... However it was good to do anyway - I learned more about how this works. And I think my problem with the tongue was that I was manipulating the Jaw Control - rather than the Jaw Master - the tongue controls are a child of the master, not the jaw control (child of the jaw master). I'm still futzing with it - but first I want to fix my lip weights EDIT: Just saw all your posts...I will digest them...man, I am a sloooowwwwww typer.

With the action window open - Right click on the decal folder in the PWS - choose NEW/Decal/image of choice - the decal will be applied in the action window - (and actually be applied to the model)

Flattening in an action still works (I think). Are you asking How to flatten? Or are you asking How to apply a decal in an action window? Nice models!

The Biggest FREE texture/images site this side of the Milky Way

I don't think it's weird either...just as long as those ginger boys behave.

YES! that worked - easy-peasy - now on to finish tweaking (later) - Thanks again

OK - Just saw this - I will try this - Thanks again (have to go out for a short bit first)

Hmmm...I had originally tried that - translating the face controls more out front - but it didn't seem to work, face got wonky. Not sure what you mean by "its marker"? So - Are you saying I would have to translate the l/r control nulls back to the tip of the appropriate geometry bone after translating the entire face controls forward ? As stated here: and Um...I might have changed some geometry bones I'm guessing I should re-export after re-positioning controls (will be trying it - but it's good to understand the interactions of the whole rig) I had tried out the tongue geom as a child of jaw geom - Can't decide which way works best - I think your way is better - but still not quite right - will deal with it after. Eyelids work fine the way I have them (1 middle bone for top, 1 middle bone for bottom) Thanks mucho for your help.

okey dokey - I changed to "Any L/R controls should be Hidden=ON at 0, Hidden=ON at 24 and Hidden=OFF at 48. L/R controls are enabled when th slider is at 2% (split controls)." 1)This makes L/R controls come on at 1, stay on at 2, and master controls also come on at 2 - which I can obviously fix to be whatever they should be: So the question now is: Is it supposed to be at 1: just L/R controls, and at 2: Just Master controls? 2) New problem - now that I can see the L/R controls - unfortunately I see that they are inside the head -apparently I didn't move the controls stuff far enough in front of my model's face. What would be the best procedure to re-position them? And of course not start from zero Can I (since I've done additional weighting after the export, once I could see how the controls were supposed to work) : 1) delete all face controls and their relationships from my model 2) drag controls and those associated relationships from original bones model (after fixing the face control relationship). 3) reposition controls again - re-export Should work? Or is there an easier way?

Note that this is not the case - master controls are viewable at 2%, L/R are never viewable. It is the same situation for front or camera view. As for the tongue - My model has the geom bones (tongue base/tong1,2,3) children of face bones, as you say, and as it was in the bones model. I was wondering if it should really be child of jaw bone instead? as the tongue doesn't go down when jaw goes down..I will look at it again I don't want you to do extra work - I just thought you had tried it. Maybe I have a different version than you? EDIT: I looked at the tongue again - I think it is working correctly...but not sure...I have it as you say to have it. I may have not assigned cps correctly

Awwww...he's cute. I like him. (Eric's just a big fraidy cat)

Hi Holmes - almost successful - still tweaking to do - (ah yes, face weighting - what a joy) A couple of questions/observations: 1) Making the tongue be a tongue - should the tongue geometry bones be parented to the jaw geometry? It wasn't in the geometry bones that I got. Altho, it is parented in the controls. Even when I did parent tongue geom bones to jaw geom - it still didn't behave properly...not sure what's not working. Are the tongue base cps's assigned to head? jaw? Do you have a model that you feel works the way it should with this new face version, that I can look at? 2) No face controls show up when slider is at 1%, only the master controls show at 2%. Are the separate L,R controls suppose to show at 1%? I took a look at the Face Controls relationship - and it looks like there are keys for the L, R controls - 0=On, 48=Off - should there be keys 24=ON as well? 3) The face weighting doc - was terrific - until we get to the lips - Holey Moley. It might be helpful to include a screen shot that shows WHAT the resultant weighting goals for the lips are (ie shot with written weights superimposed on top). The description focuses on HOW to get there, which is what is the confusing part. I realize you were trying to present the easiest, safest way to do it....but eventually I just had to wing it, because of my eyeballs starting to spin & shoot blood. The weights are not yet correct for the lips for what I have - but once I got the controls going - then it became more obvious what I might need to fix I am sooooo glad my model has bare minimum amount of splines - Face rig works wonderfully with it. I found that with the eyelids on this character, that if I only assigned cps to the lid middle bone (for both top, bottom) - and also weighted cps properly, that the eyelids close, open better than if I used the inner lid bones as well. Thanks again for the rig AND documentation!

The lite BODY rig is a charm - It's simple to install, powerful enough for most characters and the process is well documented. It's one of the easier rigs to understand. Same with the lite FACE rig. I was trying to do some independent thinking...guaranteed to be painful. Not many find rigging FUN. Just a necessary evil, but better than paying taxes, dusting...

Matt aka Bigboote must be getting very very old cause it's located here

Oh yes - tis quite good My problems were not with HOW to weight but WHAT values to assign to the cp weights (with a different mixture of bones, different hierarchy of bones) so that the splines would respond well - it was the trial & error process that was driving me batty. I was trying to work out something such that the geom bone structure was more like the actual face muscles rather than having them be centered on spline curvature - more trying to get something like Jesse's structure, Cleary's, soulcage - where geom bones lie more on the mesh, and are translated to a null, and aimed at a null (scale on z) - so that one could squish/squash face splinage more in tune to actual physiology. The control nulls would follow the curvature They were obviously able to get something going - I just ran out of steam - and decided for my simple character I would first go the direct route, and get a little more comfortable...and not have to think...my b..b...buh brain hurt.

I've used the 'model' key - I don't know where the 'translate, scale, rotate, other etc' keys are. The choices I have are 'model, branch, bone'. ' I didn't see them on your screen capture? Weird. tools/customize/commands/frame

What keyframe filtering keys do you have turned on when you do the copy/paste ? (eg model, branch, bone, translate, scale, rotate, other etc) I believe there is a magic combo, which I'm sure someone (rob, mark) can tell you what it is

My brain exploded, my eyeballs fell out of my head, and my cat ate the neighbor's dog whilst trying to figure out cp weighting for different face geometry bones. I will give this a spin ... after I clean up my keyboard. Muchissimo Guchissimo! Vaya Con Carne!

Looks very good - very smooth Would love to see a screen shot of the geometry bones, if possible, if not too much trouble.

Malo - I'll see what I can do. My English isn't that good either, AND I'm a native English speaker. I read French a little. Oddly I found that the French made a little more sense. Go figure.

Gerry - I always find it is easier to work with an image sequence - rather than a .mov or .avi that way frame rate doesn't confoooze me. 1) so convert mov to image sequence (tgas is best) 2) import tga image sequence into A:M (all should come in) 3) apply decal with image sequence - 4) set the Crop start and end to be the same as range start and end (ignore length, speed, frame for now) - in my eg it was 0-121 images for whole thing 5) in chor - expand to show all drivers for the model that has the image sequence decal 6) go to frame that you want the sequence to start - set the frame number of the image in the sequence that you want it to start at (doesn't have to be 0) 7) go to frame that you want sequence to end - set the frame number to the end frame number of the sequence that you want to play In my example I set the start of the sequence to be frame 0 on the animation frame 0, and the end frame to be 121 on frame 24 - thus frame 65 of image sequence will play on frame 13 of the animation

definitely - if I get anything useful - I will be sure to share - even if it's not useful - I will try to share what I learned.

Maddle: If you or anyone are looking for a tutorial on modeling faces/whole characters in A:M - The Colin Tutorial is a good start - but does not create a spline layout that is the best for animating. The Malo Modeling Method Tutorial creates spline layouts that are excellent for animating, and he describes a generalized, logical method for A:M that can be used for just about anything. Wonderful! I highly recommend it, especially if you want to animate your characters, and have minimal splines. I believe Malo is a native french speaker. So sometimes the text, translated into English is a little confusing. But I could make sense out of everything just by the wonderful and complete pictures. The screen captures are excellent - so one doesn't have to read much text at all. Perhaps he has a version in french?

Thanks Holmes - no rush on the instructions - I did download your new version when you posted it - I can probably figure it out with the existing instructions some - I'll ask questions if I can't I'm starting to look at Cleary's gizmo face rig - oooo weee - very nice, but complicated (doesn't quite work in 15e) - I like the way he lays out his geometry bones - I may try to figure out a simpler implementation using the geom bones he has and just some simple nulls & smart skin for control. I like the controls in your face rig (but don't want labels, probably want moveable camera, or no camera). And if I can't figure out how to do a hybrid, I will go with lite face As you say - the most time will be spent on weighting the face. Well not exactly, the most time spent will be me trying to figure the laziest way out, and then doing it over the right way, by going with liteface. (thanks Steve for the complement)