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A Face Rigging Method (Parts I and II)


Rodney

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A Face Rigging Method - Part I (64.2MB MOV File) (broken link)

A Face Rigging Method - Part II (57.7MB MOV File) (broken link)

EDIT: A Face Rigging Method Part I&II.zip
(this ZIP contains both MOVs)

Recommendations/Notes to viewers:

These tutorials are large MOV format tutorials with sound! Consider whether you have the bandwidth required prior to viewing or download. I don't think these stream... so beware.

 

To download Right Click on the link and choose "Save Target As". Save the file to your harddrive for later viewing.

 

This should be considered an Advanced Level Tutorial on Rigging but David does an excellent job of taking us from basic to advanced with lots of good tips along the way.

 

For those that cannot view this tutorial for whatever reason we encourage you to drop a message in the Requests Thread and we'll do what we can to get things straight.

Edited by robcat2075
broken download links
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Hey David,

 

Two hours of fantastic quality instructional rigging video with audio (for free) is an unbelievable gift! Thanks so much for doing this. I'm sure we can't even begin to imagine the time you put into this.

 

To those reading this post who may wonder if it's worth the download... ABSOLUTELY! Whether you are working on a face or any other rigging project, you will learn a lot from watching David work. From copying bones, flipping, adding constraints, organizing your work, etc., it's all there.

 

Great job, and thanks again!

 

Mark

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Rodney are these on both ftp sites..I got them but it was a slow download even on cable..just curious

 

Yes. They are on the Hash FTP.

I don't think they are on the mirror (which is faster) but at least they are available.

Apologies for any slow speed.

 

Obviously the standard tutorial will not be of this size.

With David's permission we may try to translate portions of his tutorials into Wink (text only) tutorials. That will ensure everyone gets to learn from the lesson.

 

This is, of course, wishful thinking but going that route would allow us to link into specific parts of the tutorial to accomodate specific questions on rigging.

 

(Just thinking out loud)

 

For anyone that has watched these David really gets going and it's good to be able to scroll back and view through again. Lots of info in there.

 

Mark said:

To those reading this post who may wonder if it's worth the download... ABSOLUTELY! Whether you are working on a face or any other rigging project, you will learn a lot from watching David work. From copying bones, flipping, adding constraints, organizing your work, etc., it's all there.

 

I echo the praise. Just the copying bones part was worth the download for me!

I should have known that.... definitely should have known that.

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If those downloading could post the time it took to download that will help people decide on how realistic it will be for them to do the same.

 

Thanks!

About 10-15 minutes only about 65k per sec on cable

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With David's permission we may try to translate portions of his tutorials into Wink (text only) tutorials.

 

I have absolutely no problem with it, WINK away. If anyone wants the rigged example head, it can be had in the thread located here ("tutehead_rigged_v2.zip", it's in the May 15th post).

 

Rodney was very kind to peer review the tutorial and find a home for it...THANK YOU, RODNEY! He is tireless. Thanks to everyone that has given me feedback, you all have been extremely helpful...and make me feel like I'm not working in a vacuum.

 

If anyone has questions regarding the tutorial, flag me down and I'll do my best to answer them.

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Fantastic! Marvellous!

You have been working man! Congratulations!

 

It took me one hour to download them - each!

But good sound and good teaching...

 

Why not use DivX and the filesize can be just some MegaBytes.

The problem is Hash does not allow you to upload DivX .avi-files...

I have tried but not succeded...

Perhaps you can get them change their mind?!.,

 

And WINK it? Yes but it will take some hours... to me sound tutorials are good

And text tutorials are good to... they are faster to navigate...

So I believe in both...

 

Sound tutorials can be bad... because you have to listen to a guy talking and talking - and someones have not repeated the stuff before - so they makes a lot of mistakes you have to listen to - so sound can be bad - you have a few such examples at Hash - but you are not doing any mistakes you know your subject and you are talking fast and clear - so congratulations again!!!!

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First I was really enthuiastic, but two hours rigging - using the Bertram rig - looking at every mouse click - you begin to wonder - video - hard compressed - perhaps DivX can do it a little better - is this really right? Who will spend two hours following every mouse click? It is too easy just capturing and speaking perhaps...

 

An Overview is perthaps the right thing... Just trying to tell the essence... and perhaps a little more of rigging heads - and the problems of it - the different ways to think about it.

 

To me this Bertram rig seems complicated - a lot of work - perhaps you do not need all those bones - because the head will still be the head of a doll - not realistic - so it is about there to put the limit - what will do the job? Perhaps Willis mouth rig is enough?

 

The Bertram rig - sure good - but more job... so an Overview is needed - that is my conclusion so you can decide for yourself if this is good or not - perhaps reflecting on different alternatives. And all those mouse clicks perhaps they can be cut out or they can be put on paper instead reduced to a sentence?

 

But for sure - itsjustme - have done a great job - and this is his first tutorial I believe - so after doing some more ones - having got some critic - you will perhaps do it a bit different...

post-50-1117464912.jpg

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another Thank You Very Much for these tutorials.

Just unbelievable all the great information contained here.

I have a lot of books about how to use AM but "seeing" how things are done is so much more valuable.

Exactly the tut content I have been looking for lately and expertly done.

 

download times were pretty slow even on cable here after an initial burst of 32.3 KB/sec it settled down to about 15 KB/sec for the duration. That server is probably really cooking with this one. Can't wait to start learning with them.

 

Thanks again.... :):)

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I think we have been especially hard on Hash Inc's bandwidth this month.

We'll try to be good stewards of the space they've given us.

 

If we eventually have to rotate the larger tutorials in and out we will.

It could be a good chance to spotlight certain themes as well.

 

I need to go back and review this tutorial again as I started to lose some of the detail near the end.

 

The detail is awesome but it can plum wear you out! ;)

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- perhaps DivX can do it a little better -

 

I used Quicktime Sorenson3 video (MP4 audio) so that it would be scrubbable and easy on Mac users...DivX has given some Mac users problems. I got a little over a megabyte per minute...I don't think that's too bad.

 

- perhaps you do not need all those bones -

 

There are as many ways to rig something as you can imagine...I used bones because they naturally move in an arc. Muscle movement moves linearly, you can add key frames to get arcs though.

 

Perhaps Willis mouth rig is enough?

 

Could be, it depends on what you're going for. I'm not saying that this is the only way to do it.

 

so an Overview is needed

 

I have no problem with someone putting one together if it's felt like it's needed. I was trying to cover as much detail as I thought would be needed by the lowest common denominator.

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Don't fret too much about it Dave...

 

Considering the rave reviews it seems the only concern is bandwidth.... I will be going to a barbeque now and will be downloading these while I eat dead birds and ungulates.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

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so an Overview is needed

 

I have no problem with someone putting one together if it's felt like it's needed. I was trying to cover as much detail as I thought would be needed by the lowest common denominator.

I really appreciate what you have done and all that work you have had.

What I have tried to say is that two hours of seeing every mouse click can perhaps be good if you want to do a Bertram rigging or perhaps you do not have to show every mouse click - perhaps some parts can be summarized.

 

But it is not easy to do tutorials and you have done a great one! so congratulations once again!

 

As I can understand - you have been thinking a lot - how to do this face rigging - why not in some kind of overview give us some glimpses of your thinking - to use bones or not to use bones? Constraints how? or not how to do them... Just a little so we can understand why you have choosed this alternative... and we perhaps learn something so we can test our own alternatives...

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Can anyone who's download these cut them to CD and post them to me?

 

I'm looking into some options for this type of assistance primarily for dialup users but its always possible it could expand beyond that.

 

Going beyond David's immediate need, I want to encourage people who want services like this to support The Extra CD Project as it could (in my estimation) grow into an excellent means of getting these resources out to A:M Users.

 

In the meantime if anyone can help David please do.

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David S. - just finished reviewing Part One - excellent! I'm somewhat overwhelmed, which is why I decided just to watch them first before trying anything. However, I get the gist of what you are doing. What an amazing amount of work to come up with this system!

 

One thing if you could clarify - how is the copying of bones done? Is it control key and drag to parent? You never do actually say (unless I missed it) and while I see you drag the bone to the parent, I'm not sure that itself is doing the copying.

 

The making a pose to hide/show bones is a stroke of genius! Otherwise it would be a pain to work with so many bones. Looking forward to part two - even though my head is spinning! I'm looking forward to trying this on one of my own charactrs.

 

Tom

 

P.S. David H. I would love to burn a CD for you but my burner is down ATM - I'm sure someone will step up though :)

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One thing if you could clarify - how is the copying of bones done? Is it control key and drag to parent? You never do actually say (unless I missed it) and while I see you drag the bone to the parent, I'm not sure that itself is doing the copying.

 

Yes, hold down the "Ctrl" key and drag to copy. I do say it in the tutorial, but, I don't think I said on the first time I copied...I think I said it when I copied the left half of the mouth bones though.

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David, I thought you might be interested to know that I have had some success in getting your rig to work in another model.

This is not the horribly high patch model I have been working with - just a test model this time.

 

I used the 'Arnie' model from the V.9 CD ( it has no bones or muscle poses to worry about ) Before as a test, I had used the Tarzan model.

With the Tarzan,I deleted the bones as well as any actions / ( relationships ), but some were left over, which led me to believe that I was really just using the sliders from the Tarzans' original set up.

I began to think you were right about the rig not being transferable to another model.

 

This time as a test - and to make sure I used a model without prebuilt poses sliders, - I used the Arnie model.

 

I opened the Arnie model, imported your 'tutehead V2 model on top of it > lined the two up so they had similar proportions > moved the V2 geometry over, but did not delete it ( This had caused crashing in previous tests ) > hid all bones but the mouth geometry bones , the cheek,nostril, ear, jowl,and other "control' bones > assigned CPs to them ....done !

 

Even without fixing the CP weighting I was able to see the setup working correctly all within ten minutes .

 

The best part about this was all of those pre-made sliders that you already have setup !

Of course you are still required to refine the look of the expressions, but so much of the work has already been done .

The only snag that I ran into is that the pose sliders seem to loose their negative values ( in a frown/smile slider you loose the frown pose info ) Any idea what causes this ?

 

I hope I'm not 'jumping the gun' on this. :unsure: It appears to be totally possible to use this rig in another model.

 

Thanks once again for you efforts !

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The only snag that I ran into is that the pose sliders seem to loose their negative values ( in a frown/smile slider you loose the frown pose info ) Any idea what causes this ?

 

I got the same thing when I tried it...hmmm, I don't know why the negative portion of the sliders goes away. It did it on all of the sliders I checked though.

 

Another thing that would cause problems beyond that though is anything with a translate offset on it like in the "nose_targeting". I'm still thinking that for the time being putting the rig in from scratch would be less confusing. I'm working on automating the process now, that would make it a lot easier and specific to the model being rigged. I can't give you an estimate of when I'll be done with that yet, but when I get closer I'll post something. For now I'm hoping the tutorials will help.

 

If you want to continue experimenting Vegan, here's the rig without geometry or muscle poses and the "translate to" constraints in the nose_targeting deleted (the offsets seemed to cause problems when attempting to adapt the rig to a new model).

tutehead_bones_v2.zip

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If those downloading could post the time it took to download that will help people decide on how realistic it will be for them to do the same.

 

 

David, this is simply incredible ... THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!! Between you & J. Talbot, I would of gladly paid cash for these tutorials ;)

 

As for time, part one took less than 20 mins & part two less than 15 mins ...

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Hi,

 

Does anyone know how I can get mpg4 so I can hear these tuts -- they work fine on my main PC but not on the PC I want to play them on. On this Pc I can see them but not hear them. I know I could spend yet another $29 for QT Pro for this PC but I'm hoping to avoid this as I have this thing on 4 PCs now and just don't want to buy it again.

 

The tuts look awesome. Any help would be appreciated!

 

Rusty

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I have been watching the face rigging tutorials, but I came up with a funny problem in the project file.

 

At one point, A:M crashed while I was opening the file, and when I restarted and reopened, the head had a lot of lines that seemed to be shooting from certain control points (?) So I deleted the whole tutorial, re-downloaded it and tried again. Usually, same thing happens, and pressing the spacebar makes some lines disappear and other move. If this were Maya, I'd say that somehow the constraints were getting messed up (I've had IK joint constraints pin themselves to the origin), but I can't see where these end. If I zoom out to the point where I can't see the head except as a red dot, the lines are still heading off into infinity. Is this anything other than annoying? I think the tutorials are great and the rigging method is excellent. I hadn't done anything to the .prj file except open it.

 

I'm on a Mac, and I just updated to the latest version.

 

I've attached a .jpg

 

Seana

post-50-1118151307.jpg

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I think it's an anomaly caused by the surface constraints in the original project (just a guess)...if I'm remembering correctly, if you click on any control point they go away. What you want is the final head called "tutehead_rigged_v2.zip" on the second page of the thread...it's the May 15th post, I think it's the eighth one down from the top.

 

If that doesn't solve it, let me know.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks david for the time you put in creatign this video.

 

I have also beginning to choose MOV formats to cover compatibility issues with mac and pc (you need the cross platform).

 

I suppose the X-CD ][ could contain all tutorials, adn should be easy enough to put together. Containing your videos, Jims video, and the hash VM shockwaves :)

 

How long have you taken on creating these tutorials? I suppose of you were to edit them to make them leaner it WOULD be more of your precious animating time.

 

Anyways, having every click is GOOD TOO cause then I can follow you along on monitor 1 as I dublicate your rig in a:m on teh 2nd monitor.

 

For people on all kinds of connection speeds I'd suggest a Download Manager. (freshdevices.com has a free one for pc). This splits larger files into small chunks and stitches them back together oce downloaded. AND supports resume in case the download is almost done, and then freezes, or you wish to resume it at a later time.

 

anyways, thanks again for your contributions

-Larry B

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Not a problem, Larry.

 

I have also beginning to choose MOV formats to cover compatibility issues with mac and pc (you need the cross platform).

 

That's exactly why I used Quicktime. I went with a TV resolution of 720x480 as opposed to the entire desktop and used a 5 frames per second capture rate to keep the file size down. Then I went back and edited out as much of the space between mouse clicks as I could...it was still a large file, but it was a lot smaller than it would've been if I didn't do what I did. I ended up with a little over a megabyte per minute.

 

How long have you taken on creating these tutorials?

 

It took me around three weeks to put together in my spare time. I actually recorded and edited five or six versions because of technical problems...this was the first time I tried making a tutorial this way.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all!

 

Been a while since I posted on the forum, feels good to be back!

 

As for the tutorials, those are great, well done and concise!

 

As for those who are complaining, there is not such a thing as too much explanations for someone learning 3D, if you don't have the patience to look at two hours of tutorials, how the heck can you have the patience of doing any 3D productions at all. Great job and many thanks!

 

As for compression, I have a few suggestions, both involve commercial software.

 

The first involves a video encoder that comes with Flash professional, it encodes FLV files that can then be imported into flash so you can create a swf movie that can be read by about anyone, I tried it with the first movie, came out half size with no noticeable loos of quality. Would have been better and smaller with original lossless files of course.

 

Second involves a really nice capture program called captivate from macromedia, this one, instead of creating images for al frames, creates images only when there is change in the image, the mouse is recorded as a Flash sprites, usually I get around 3-5 minutes a mb at 1024X768, very good stuff.

 

Those are kind of expensive solutions but gives probably the best results there is.

 

I am more then willing to encore both tuts with the Flash encoder and create the Flash movies from original files if needed.

 

Gilles

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Thanks for the info, Gilles! Nice to see you're back.

 

I have the original files, I could dig them up for you if you like. As they are pretty large files, it would probably be easier for me to mail them to you since I'm on a dialup. Send me a message here on the forums with your address if you want me to send them.

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What you are suggesting Gilles would be great.

 

Smashing these files down to a size more edible by all would be much appreciated.

The ability to run the tutorials live (via future CD/DVD or online server) would then be possible too.

 

Rodney

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Hello Rodney!

 

Wassup Man? :)

 

Yeah, I think there is many ways to provide efficient help on the Web, been thinking bout making pay on demand tutorials but this is not really viable for the hobbiest based user group that we have here.

 

So instead I will make some free tutorials and will test the different technology I have at my disposal doing so.

 

I will post my findings along the way and will offer all the help I can give for peoples wanting to make tutorials.

 

With our collective braintstorming I am pretty sure that we will come up with pretty decent solutions.

 

Btw, in my previous post I forgot another tool at my disposal, Sorenson squeeze. A really good set of tools for professional compression.

 

Will try those as soon as I have David's files

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  • 2 weeks later...

You mentioned editing out mouse clicks. However, I was wondering where things were edited out and where they weren't.

 

You seemed to copy data from some places to others very quickly. I think one example is where you put the end of a bone on the exact location of a CP, and it looked like you copied the CP location and then pasted it to the End part of the bone. Was this some magical keystroke combination, or just an editing trick?

 

Thanks!

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You can copy it using "Ctrl-C" and then paste it using "Ctrl-V" in Windows (I don't know what it would be on a Mac), but, everything except the actual pasting I edited out for time. Most of it I just hand typed in though since it would be faster than jumping back and forth cutting and pasting the values. Every time I input a value on the tutorial, there is an edit for time (in a lot of instances I only got rid of a few frames, but they add up). You can definitely see where I compressed time when I rename a bunch of bones. Also, there are a couple of places where I show how to do something once and say to repeat the process.

 

The only reason for any of the editing is to reduce the file size...and it still weighs in at 120 MB split into two files. Which isn't bad for almost two hours of video with audio IMO. Gilles may be able to reduce the file size further when he gets around to it.

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  • 4 months later...
Hi David,

 

I haven't watched the tutorials yet, as I am downloading them now, but i want to say thank you for your time and effort with these videos.

I am looking forward to viewing them! biggrin.gif

 

I hope it's helpful, Pat. If you run into any problems or have a question, flag me down.

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Hi David- I just finished watching the first half of the first tute and I want to say a big THANKS for this excellent resource. This is not too much info, but it certainly bears re-watching, and obviously it's possible to simplify as needed (I don't think I'll ever need to put six bones into a tongue! but you never know.)

 

Just grateful for the work you put in, I know this sort of thing is a lot of work. It's appreciated!

 

Gerry

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(I don't think I'll ever need to put six bones into a tongue! but you never know.)

 

The tongue is a place where you might want to use a purely muscle set of poses, Gerry. Shaun Freeman's face rigging tutorial on the 2004 Hash Siggraph disks shows how to do it...in my head I'm leaning more that direction at the moment. It all depends on what you're doing, if you want the poses to be able to be transferred to another character, use bones. Muscle poses will transfer if the other character is exactly the same (CP's named the same), but otherwise you'll have to redo them.

 

The way I do things depends on the situation and is always evolving. Right now I'm adapting the rig in this tutorial to the FACE controls in the Squetch Rig. I'll make a tutorial once I'm done...which should be in a week or so if I'm lucky.

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(I don't think I'll ever need to put six bones into a tongue! but you never know.)

 

The tongue is a place where you might want to use a purely muscle set of poses, Gerry. Shaun Freeman's face rigging tutorial on the 2004 Hash Siggraph disks shows how to do it...in my head I'm leaning more that direction at the moment. It all depends on what you're doing, if you want the poses to be able to be transferred to another character, use bones. Muscle poses will transfer if the other character is exactly the same (CP's named the same), but otherwise you'll have to redo them.

 

The way I do things depends on the situation and is always evolving. Right now I'm adapting the rig in this tutorial to the FACE controls in the Squetch Rig. I'll make a tutorial once I'm done...which should be in a week or so if I'm lucky.

 

SaaaaaaaWeeeeeeeeeeeet! Thanks :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Sorry to be a pest -- not tongue.gif, but how far are you on that tutorial? smile.gif

 

There's a constraint issue I'm waiting on a fix for before I have the Tinman's face rigged and an importing issue that I'm hoping gets fixed before I make the tutorial...it shouldn't be too long. Sorry for the delay.

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  • 17 years later...

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