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strohbehn

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Posts posted by strohbehn

  1. Ken, I wouldn't mess with the poses just yet as Mark is going to be tweaking the weighting of the mouth, I believe. I just wanted to post this so that people could see what I am seeing. 'Sync' is the is the null that generates the severe distortion in the upper lip though.

     

    Dhar, you are right about the eyelids. It can be a bit tricky making sure that the eyelids are properly closed without penetrating one another. I fixed the first blinks but missed that last one. Oh, well. ;-)

    Nimmie is Ken's baby, Paul, so he'll be working on Nimmie's poses. I like the look of the renders you guys are doing. Other than the midline stuff, it's looking good! Sorry for the delay in fixing this.

     

    Doing the eyeblinks will be much faster and easier once we add the Eyes Open/Closed key groups (if we do). The way they are currently set up allows closing the eyes in many different positions (a good thing), but that also means you have to be careful about having them penetrate each other.

     

    Ken, I will be posting the demo video for fixing the midlines of these poses later today.

  2. I notice, in the four-pose example that you provided, that the eye movement doesn't show unless I leave the pose set to on until the next pose. Also the interface shows but the controls are missing. Is this correct?

    The new pose buttons won't work unless you turn them on, then off right away, so I'm not sure what it is you're seeing, Paul. Are you talking about the Eyes Closed/Open buttons, or actual eyeball shifting that you are adding to these poses with either the eye aimer bone or eye nulls?

     

    Regarding the interface... there are three positions for the FACE interface slider to be in, so depending on where the slider is set you'll see different controls and different graphics:

    0 - FACE interface is off completely. You won't see any of it.

    1 - Joint pose control nulls and interface graphics show. The rest are hidden.

    2 - Split pose control nulls and interface graphics show. The rest are hidden.

     

     

    If you haven't watched this video from this post, I think it would be very beneficial. (it's a bit crappy, but gets the job done)

    http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...=19608&hl=video

     

    1. Session1_Final_640x480.mov (5:32 min, 6.0MB):

    http://www.mstrohbehn.lunarpages.com/FACE%...nal_640x480.mov

    Introduction to how the FACE works

  3. I'm curious about how you set up your poses though. Are they all just standard On/Off poses? I need to find some info on key groups because I don't really understand what this new feature is.
    I missed this part of your question. Sorry, Paul.

     

    The poses I made for this test file were not set up in the standard way that you would normally make a pose. They deal with "translate to" constraints and offsets on the control nulls. You don't have to worry about this stuff at all yet. We're just trying out the concept for now, and trying to get a framework for how it's all going to work. You can go ahead and do your pose tests with the FACE interface control nulls as usual. When it comes time to actually make the final poses for the key groups, then I'll explain how to do it.

     

    The concept behind key groups is that pressing one key button will force a keyframe on select parts of your model... whatever parts have been preassigned to the key group. So, if you hit the "Key FACE Controls" button, only the FACE control nulls' positions will be keyed (and nothing else). The benefit is that it is very fast and you end up with infinitely less channels (curves) to handle because only the needed stuff was keyed.

     

    In the case of the Key FACE Poses buttons, toggling these on and off again sets a keyframe for the stuff that makes those poses (without having to key any of the bones of the rest of the body).

     

    Just follow the instructions that I posted earlier today, and you should be able to start to see the benefits. It's really just accomplishing the stuff you and some of the others were wishing for early on in this thread.

     

    Does this help?

  4. Thanks for that fine explanation, David. Very clear.

     

    [attachmentid=16152] (new version)

     

    Here is the latest test file for the "Key FACE Poses" and "Reset FACE Controls" feature. This file adds key buttons for "Eyes Closed" and "Eyes Open" for making eye blink animation easier. Remember that you have to toggle them on, then off right away. Also, animating eye blinks needs to be done AFTER other facial poses are keyed, otherwise the eyeblinks will be overridden by the eyelid positions of the facial poses.

     

    [attachmentid=16151]

    post-3082-1145501812_thumb.jpg

    Key_Facial_Poses_Test.zip

  5. Here's what the toggling does... turning the pose ON sets keys for "translate to" constraints which move the control nulls the required travel in relation to their center null. Then we have to toggle the pose OFF to turn off the "translate to" constraints on the control nulls so they're ready to be moved again.

     

    It all has to do with the "autoswitching" feature that was developed during Squetch rig developement, so without that (thanks to all the riggers and Hash coders) and Dagooos' ingenuity none of this would be possible. I don't really understand it very well myself.

     

    I tried your Close and Open Eyes Keys and they worked like a charm, Ken, as long as the eyes are animated AFTER the facial poses are set, otherwise the eye part of the face poses overrides the Eyes Open/Closed poses. Not a problem at all, just a workflow item. That will significantly speed up animating the eye blinks. Great suggestion!

     

    I'll post the sample file later.

  6. Ken, for keying each of the facial poses and the "Reset FACE Controls" you have to toggle the button on then off right away. If you don't toggle it off right away, the "translate to" constraints stay in effect and you can't move the control nulls and it won't work right. Did I answer your question?

  7. Hey Mark, could you put in a key group for a blink. Maybe one for eyes down and then eyes up. That's going to be needed so often. But maybe it could be done as an action.....

    Great idea, Ken. I'll look into it tonight.

     

     

    Mark, I haven't played with this yet but it looks very promising.

    I had you in mind when working on this, Paul. Your suggestions were all very good and I can see the value in it more now than my original opposition reflected. I think you'll like it very much, so give it a test drive and let me know if it's how you envisioned it working. This is still a work-in-progress and we can make it better.

     

    Mark

  8. Here's a sample model for testing the value of the proposed "Key Facial Poses" and "Reset FACE Controls" Features. It has 4 preset poses to play with.

     

    [attachmentid=16145]

     

    To Test:

    1. Open the model in a new action.

    2. Hit the 1-key to turn on the FACEcam.

    3. Turn on the FACE controls using the FACE interface slider (optional).

    4. In the pose slider window, click on the "Key Groups" folder, then the "Key FACE poses" folder to open it.

    5. Set the time slider to 5 sec and toggle the "Scowley Grumpy guy" button on then off.

    6. Set the time slider to 10 sec and toggle the "Large Hopeful Smile" button on then off.

    7. Set the time slider to 15 sec and toggle the "Quizzical" button on then off.

    8. Set the time slider to 20 sec and toggle the "Sleepy" button on then off.

    9. Set the time slider to 25 sec and toggle the "Reset FACE Controls" on then off.

    10. Scrub back and forth over the timeline to see that the poses were keyed with the simple toggle of a button.

    11. Set the time slider anywhere on the timeline and hit the "Reset FACE Controls" on then off to reset the FACE Controls to their default position.

    12. Set the time slider anywhere on the timeline and hit any of the pose buttons to overwrite whatever pose was originally on that keyframe.

     

    [attachmentid=16144]

     

    Do we want the "Key Facial Poses" feature added (assuming no problems)? Please try it out and give your feedback.

     

    Thanks,

    Mark

    post-3082-1145482157_thumb.jpg

    Key_Facial_Poses_Test.zip

  9. Very cool, Mark! I'll add this to the next v13 Squetch Rig...and fix the oversight on the split controls.

    Let's wait awhile to add this to the official rig until we refine it a bit, David. We don't want to add anymore work than is necessary, yet.

     

     

    Okay, I tested the "Reset Face Controls" with the split controls and it worked without a hitch in Scarecrow, but, I got all kinds of circularity errors in Tinman....maybe he exceeds the limits of the baking, I don't know. I'll take another look at it tomorrow. In the mean time, here's the poses in a blank model so that anyone interested can do their own testing. For Tinman's tongue rotation it would be necessary to add a "TongueRotate_Control_reset" bone that is a copy of the "TongueRotate_Control" bone.

    Sorry about the circularity errors this introduces to Tinman. I haven't kept up on these, so don't know what a fix would be. And thanks for the blank model. Hope to get some testing time later tonight.

     

     

    Wow. That's great Mark! Nice latteral thinking.

    This is a near perfect solution I think. Wish we'd done it sooner.

     

    UPDATE:

    Again, using the concept of "Key Groups", I tested making a folder and buttons for a "Key Facial Poses" Key Group and was easily able to add a Happy Smile pose with just the toggle of the "Key Happy Smile" button. So, all we'd have to do to standardize this for all of the TWO models is to decide on a list of poses we want, then set up the buttons for those poses. Viola! The animators can go along and block in their facial poses as needed, then go back and tweak, reset, redo, etc. them on subsequent passes.

     

    I'll try to get a sample model out in the next few days.

  10. New Reset FACE Controls feature announcement!

    [attachmentid=16129]

    The juices were flowing tonight and it hit me that we can use the concept of Dagooos' fabulous "Key Groups" feature to give us an "auto reset" for our FACE controls. I set it up the same as "Key FACE Controls" so that all you have to do is toggle "Reset FACE Controls" (found right under Key FACE Controls) on and then off right away and all of the controls will move back to their centered position!

     

    It could be set up in a folder to just reset individual controls as well, but the "force Keyframe" with compensate mode on works well for that so it may be overkill.

     

    This same idea could be used to make a Key Facial Poses folder I think. It would take a bit of work, but I think it would be possible.

     

    I also found out that we should be adding the split controls into the Key FACE Groups and Reset FACE Controls, but that's not a big deal.

     

    Anyway, try out the sample model in an action and let me know what you think. It's worked without problems for me so far.

     

    [attachmentid=16128] :lol:

    Reset_FACE_Controls_Key_Groups.zip

    post-3082-1145419625_thumb.jpg

  11. ...it is an experiment that I intend to persue for the sake of 'one man - one computer' movie making.

     

    Mark, is there anything special that I should know regarding moving the interface around? Do I move them in bones mode in a model window using 'N' and holding down the Ctrl key? I haven't tried yet.

    Paul, experimentation is a great thing. Have at it and do us all proud! And yes, you can reposition interface elements by using the 'N' key and 'Ctrl' key in bones mode, but please see Uzzbay's link to my demo video for exact instructions if you haven't already watched it.

     

     

    Mark Strohbehn, do you have any idea of when the modifications to Nimmie's mouth rigging are likely to be completed? Just trying to gauge whether to shelve the posing for the moment.

    I hope to get out the new demo video sometime this late week, then it will take awhile longer from there.

     

     

    I had this book marked....hope it helps...

     

    How to move the FACE rig around

    Thanks, Uzzbay. This is the link for Paul.
  12. You all can rake me over the coals for this if you want, but here goes... I think way too much is being made of ways to automate these expressions. It's so easy to just animate "straight ahead" with this interface that it strikes me as being extreme overkill. Once an animator has spent a day or two working with it, all of the extra hoops to jump through will be counter-productive, and possibly kill the "flow" of the animation.

     

    By the time you make a pass to figure out what expressions are needed where, figure out how to key them, then have to go back and tweak everything anyway on subsequent passes, it may have been faster and more natural-looking just to hand-set them in the first place. Much of the work will have to be "unanimated" to fit with the flow of the scene. And if this isn't done we'll be seeing a character cycle through 8 preset poses for an entire scene. Yuck!

     

    OK, let the beatings begin....

     

    :D

  13. I was trying to keep an uncluttered view of Nimmie's face while working with the FACE rig and so started trying different arrangements of windows. An Action window to animate in and a choreography window to get a clean view of the facial expressions. That was nice to start with but soon produced the problem where the FACE controls became unresponsive. Martin suggested two choreography windows, with a seperate camera for viewing the results, and that is what I have been using. Its not exactly the clean view that I was after but it seems alot more intuitive to me than doing it in just one window

    Paul, the interface is designed so that each set of controls can be easily moved to any position. So, it sounds like all that needs to be done is to reposition some of the FACE controls out away from Nimmie's face a bit more, right? Then there wouldn't be the need for multiple windows, correct?

     

    Check this out, Paul:[attachmentid=16103]

     

     

    Noel or anyone else: Is there a quick way to reset a null back to it's default position (where it's at in the model window). I can see it being quite tedious if you have to re-align nulls to their default position null to get other poses to work (eg if you've moved joint nulls then it messes up the poses in the split null controls).

    If you "force keyframe" while in "compensate mode" the null's value will be reset to zero, but unfortunately the null doesn't jump back to it's zero position until you touch it or until you touch one of the arrow keys.

     

    Also, the interface is designed to be used in such a way that about 80% of the work will be done in the joint mode, then fine tuning will be done in the split mode. In theory, there shouldn't be a lot of switching back and forth between the two, causing the situation you described, Ken.

    post-3082-1145325790_thumb.jpg

  14. Edit: Mark, I did Chopfyt's poses using that "middle spline" technique. It works well. I'm just wondering about the split poses of say the upper lips up. While it looks great if both sides are up, if only one is up, it shows a harsh transition at the center spline. Though naturally, if you raise only one side of your lip it forms a sneer where the highest point is more to the side of the mouth. Not sure of the solution....perhaps I'm making the pose wrong?

     

    BTW This is with porcelain at 100%

    Hi Ken. I've been working on a revision of that "midline spline" method that blends the splines to the left and right of the midline as well. There's a demo video in the works because it's too hard to explain without pictures. The process is the same, but involves a bit more work of copying/pasting parts of poses from the 75%, 50%, and 25% joint pose values into the split poses. It will solve this problem as well as is possible, I think.
  15. Can the edge of the eyelids be made to tilt slightly to emphasize saddness or anger?

    Great work you've done on her though! :-)

    Can you do a quick illustration of what you're looking for using photoshop (or whatever image manipulation program you use). Another pose could be added to change orientation of the eyelids, but I wouldn't want to add it to the onscreen interface. This would then need to be done for all of the models... probably not too big a deal, depending on what you're looking for.

     

    Just wanted to clarify that I didn't do Nimmie's poses... pretty sure Ken did those, as well as many of the others. Thanks Ken! I did Scarecrow's poses and am working on Chief Loon now.

     

    I'm guessing that any changes needed in a model's poses will likely be done by the original poser, unless some other arrangement gets worked out.

  16. First off, nice progress here guys. I'm liking your renders.

     

    I checked out a few of the models and didn't see a porcelain material anywhere. I'm on a machine that doesn't have all of the TWO textures loaded, so maybe I'm missing something. If not, it seems that a porcelain material on these models would make a world of difference in smoothness.

     

    There is also an issue with the central spline of the upper lip. When adjusting the Lip controls this spline does not move. Maybe I am missing something here. It feels like there should be a central lip control as well as a left and right.

    Paul, some of these models need to have a little work done on blending the left/right poses at the midline. This is because, at the time the posing was done, we were waiting for some software tweaks. I have a pretty good technique for fixing this now, so will try to get a demo video out sometime this next week.

     

    If I can add to what Paul said ,I found the same thing in scarecrow plus I found it would be handy to have another control at the tip of the tongue ,as when you use tongue up it seems to bend the tip upwards aswell ,Just thought I should mension it ,oh btw the dimple and the puff out cheeks sliders didn't work

    If the animators think it would be helpful, David Simmons' tongue controls could be added that would allow greater tongue control. In my personal opinion, I'm not sure how important it is, but we can talk about that. The retrofit would be a lot of work, but the controls are amazing.

     

    I forgot the dimples and cheek puff poses, but those won't be difficult to add. Thanks for the head's up.

     

    Mark

  17. EDIT2: Hmm. Mark that's a good idea. If one character is done with actions then all you'd have to do with rest is drop the actions onto them (with abit of tweaking). Hold on guys....let's discuss this abit more.

    I'm sorry, Ken, that I don't have the time now to do this, but how about just working out a "standardized" list of expresssions. Then make an action that steps through the expressions. Send the action off to the renderers and they can tweak their individual models' poses as needed to get the best look for each expression. Then they can save out that action under a new name for their specific model.

     

    Might save some time and confusion.

     

    Thanks a lot for overseeing this, Ken!

     

    Mark

  18. Hold on a minute here folks. This exercise isn't for the purpose of adding new poses... only to render samples of expressions made by blending the existing poses - using the FACE interface. To add new poses completely defeats the purpose of making a facial animation interface.

     

    I think Martin just wanted people to open whatever model they agreed to render and move the FACE controls around to show a range of expressions. As far as I can see we don't want the models changed in any way during this process. That's begging for trouble come animation time.

     

    Since FACE is standardized to all TWO models, a possibility would be to make an action that included all of the FACE manipulation for the expressions, then just use that action with some minor tweaks to do the renders. That way, the models wouldn't be messed with at all.

     

    What do you think?

  19. It's possible that your mesh may not be perfectly symmetrical. If there are differences from side-to-side, mirror smartskin won't work. Select one side of the mesh, right click and select "snap to mirrored points" (or something like that.... I'm not at A:M right now). You may need to increase the toloerance of this operation in the options menu, too.

  20. I'm pretty sure the new "Key Groups" feature is meant to greatly simplify this process. It's been awhile since I've experimented with it, but found it incredibly quick and efficient (channel wise).

  21. My intent was that either the eye target or the eye aimer would be constrained to some other object, like another character or object in the scene, so that the eyes would track that object instead of moving with the head.

  22. Will, as I was going through organizing the groups folders of the models, I noticed that the materials of scarecrow are gone. Mark Strohbehn did an update to the face rig after your upload of scarecrow with materials, he must of overridden your file. I don't know why this would be happening, he must be uploading his modified file wrong or is getting conflicts or an out of date error and when merging the files is removing other updates.

    I know specifically that I was using Will's current model and did a receive before I committed the final Scarecrow changes last time, so I don't know what happened that the materials would be lost from that model. I've not made any more changes to Scarecrow since that time, so it should be possible to get this right without too much trouble, right? Do I need to revert to Will's model then try another merge and commit, or what?
  23. Scarecrow isn't complete yet, but very close.

    Ouch. Are we okay, or did we jump the gun on texturing?

     

    I'll ask Noel tomorrow about that Error Report.

     

    (Soon, we're going to have some rendering payoff - I'm giddy with anticipation.)

    I won't be changing the Scarecrow mesh at all from here on out, so I'm thinking it was OK to go ahead and texture him. We wouldn't want to animate his face yet, though, until the poses are complete. My guess is that the same probably holds true for the rest of the characters as well.

     

    Will's render of Scarecrow looked great!

  24. Scarecrow has a finished FACE installation and has gone to Will Sutton for texturing. What's the status on the other FACE installation for characters in this Act? As they're done, we can send them off for texturing.

    Scarecrow isn't complete yet, but very close. There are joint poses I had hoped to split with the script I sent off to Noel (that doesn't work with version 13). Ken and the others will have to address the state of the rest of the models.

     

    I really like the latest alpha for working with the face poses. It's much more stable. Thanks for that.

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