Kevin

[Parlo]

 

Kevin is new character I've been working on.

 

Here's a very short and very rough little animation to test his facial setup - the brows are yet to be rigged.

 

I fancied a change in style and wanted to go for something more cartoony so I set about building my very own muppet. This has been a tinker project for the last month or so with other things taking up the majority of my time so progress has been a little slow.

 

I managed to decypher and implement the bones facial rig that Mr Navone and Mr Freeman have been flaunting. For anyone wishing to give it a go I can only say that:

 

a. it's an absolute beauty

 

b. once you start to build it, it becomes very clear, very quickly. It's far less complex than it initially seems.

 

Kevin will eventually have hair. Below is an early test to to see the kind of look I'm after. Once I've got all his controls nailed, I'll fix his mop-top.

 

 

As usual all comments very welcome. This isn't something that's going to progress at anything resembling any speed, but it's always good to get some feedback.

[AMAR]

clean character.........very Jim Henson Muppet looking.

 

So that means he's going to be a humorous fellow?

[dj_jonnyg]

Any chance for some wires?

 

PS I'm digging the look.

[JTalbotski]

Very cool, Sam! Nice fluid motion and smooth character. Does he have porcelain applied?

 

Also, would you say the facial rig you used is only good for cartoony characters? Do you think a more realistic character might be too hard to rig that way and still animate semi realistically?

 

Thanks for showing your new character!

 

Jim

[Iham Wrong]

Wonderful character; fun cartoony characters are so neat. Also, I think he's a good representative of you and your generous - jubilant nature. He looks really happy to be alive. Should be a lot of fun to work with. Finding him things to explore and ponder about should be easy.

[noah brewer]

Looks great! Are you using the porcelain.mat on his face?

[Sacman]

Awesome! I still haven't worked up the nerve to try even the easiest of human forms or body parts (including heads) this is the kind of thing that makes me want to try. Fortunately I have had enough other things to work on that I don't feel like I've wimped out too much.

 

I assume you are using V11 hair?

 

If not, can you show a wire. Hell, show a wire anyway, everyone is gonna want to see it.

 

Wade

[Parlo]

clean character.........very Jim Henson Muppet looking.

 

So that means he's going to be a humorous fellow?

Thanks! I almost wore out my copy of Jim Henson: The Works whilst working on him. I also wore down my credit card buying alot of the orignal Muppets series on DVD. I was a massive fan as a child and still am to this day. Though I stopped being scared of Sweetums a while back.

 

He is a comic character but I also want to try out a wide range of stuff with him.

 

Any chance for some wires?

 

 

He's not got the lightest of meshes but I wanted to be able to have a lot of options for creating expressions...

 

Which brings me to Jim's comment:

 

Would you say the facial rig you used is only good for cartoony characters? Do you think a more realistic character might be too hard to rig that way and still animate semi realistically?

I'd say that it was equally suited to both types of character. With the work I did earlier this year (with the long faced guy) I felt that, whilst I got good enough result, I didn't get enough shape and texture to the movement of the mouth.

 

The beauty of the bone facial rig is that it genuinely allows you to model ALL the motion of the mouth. There are no longer any concerns about additive poses. I liken it to programming or coding the trajectory of every CP - you set it up so that you have complete control over each CP's range of motion. The bone method means that most of the work in making the movement organic is done for you by the bones, and this makes it a managable approach. Once that's set up it's just a matter of tweaking to get the result you want. For a realistic character you can maintain as much or as little of the original sculpting as the mouth smiles, purses, gapes or pouts.

 

Imagine for example you've got a character who's teeth and mouth are shaped like the end of your index finger - the corners of the mouth are either side of where the last joint is, and the lips form an elongated arc round to the tip. In other words the lip's shape is very narrow and very deep. You can rig the corner of the mouth so that as it moves in towards the middle of the lips, it automatically clings to these contours - it's just a matter of keying the scale of the bone along its rotation. Now whenever you move the corner of the mouth it maintains that shape. This is the beauty of it.

 

And once the tweaking is done, all the deformation is there. Keying in the mouth shapes for that short test was a piece of pie because I never had worry about the ill effects of one pose laid on top of the other. In short, it's an almost 100% unbreakable rig.

 

Are you using the porcelain.mat on his face?

 

Yep, I tried it without but porcelain was the best way to get the "fabric coverting shaped foam" look I was after.

 

I think he's a good representative of you and your generous - jubilant nature.

 

Lol, thanks! I've been on the phone with a friend whilst typing this reply and I quoted your comment to him. He's yet to stop laughing. Suffice to say I can be a real meany if I wanna. But after working with the "long faced guy" for a while I felt that I needed to do something bright and breezy. I'm really pleased that he seems to have an instant appeal. This bodes well!

 

I assume you are using V11 hair?

 

Yep, and I need to do alot more work on it. As I said I'm keen to get him fully rigged first, the hair is just a nice bonus. I'm hoping to get a good dishevelled feel to it.

 

Thanks for all the replies and compliments guys - they make me wish I had more time to dedicate to him. But rest assured you'll be seeing alot more of him.

Edited June 23, 2004 by Parlo

[Rodney]

Parlo,

Kevin is Awesome!

 

All those hours watching the Muppets DVDs is really paying off!

There is a lot to be said about how you've set up Kevin and your pictures and description excellently show us a good bit of that...

 

It took me a while to warm up to the coffee loving "long face guy" but Kevin is instance access likeable! You've really got the feel for this animation thing.

 

When they finally meet up... whoa... this is gonna be good!

 

Don't stop now!!!

[Xtaz]

PARLO !!!

 

WOW !!!!!!!!!

your characters are amazing ....

 

I LOVE THEM .....

 

don't stop, dont stop

 

cheers

 

Xtaz

[mediaho]

Cool character! Looks like he'll be a lot of fun to animate.

[Sharky]

Hi Parlo!

 

Your character is very funny and its animation test is cool!

I want to see more details! Go, go ,go ....!

 

Yours sincerely, Sharky

[J. Baker]

Very nice Parlo, can't wait to see what you do with the hair, although I kinda liked the mop look.

[Parlo]

Thanks for all the positive comments -

 

I've done a quick test with hair.

 

QT - Sorenson3 - 703kb

 

I just made a group on the top of his head and applied a hair material to it, did a little bit of tweaking and grooming and rendered the result. It's come out pretty darn well for an early test. I need to properly shape the placement of the material, and vary the density more but it shows that he definately looks good with hair!

[J. Baker]

Hair reminds me of Kevin Bacon for some reason, looks good though. Keep uo the good work, cheers.

[Parlo]

Yeah, there's a touch of 80's synth pop about him too. I don't think this will be his permanent hair style.. but it definately gives him cause to wonder what happened!

 

I did another render last night after tweaking some of the settings.

 

 

Here's the new clip - QT - Sorenson3 - 800kb

[Iham Wrong]

Parlo..  it shows that he definately looks good with hair!

 

 

<chuckle> I thought he looked equally good with no hair. I have to admit though that the last hairstyle does add an extra element of expressiveness, shock or surprise. Gosh he's gonna be a rock star and you are gonna get famous.

[dj_jonnyg]

Can you post a picture of his facial rig setup?

 

Thanks,

Jon

[AMAR]

Though I stopped being scared of Sweetums a while back.

 

You to huh?

 

Yes they were pretty intimidating as a child.

 

With hash new hair feature might be an idea or a challenge to recreate one or something like it in 11.

[lazarter]

Looks really nice! I love the style!

[Parlo]

Thanks again guys. I'm really pleased with how appealing he seems to be. I conciously sat down to try and create a likeable and personable character!

 

Dj - It's hard to know exactly what to show you of the rig - do you want stills of the bones in the model window, a movie of the "Hey..." action done with the bones visible, or both? As I said before, the rig is something that appears very complex when you just look at it. But once you start to get a feel for what the bones actually do... it becomes very clear, very quickly.

 

AMAR - Once I've finished Kevin, I might just have to adapt the rig and try and make my own version of Sweetums!

[Sharky]

Hi!

 

Looks good with hair too!

Great work, Parlo!

 

Sharky

[dj_jonnyg]

Whatever help you can give would be great.

 

How did you learn to implement the rig? Were there any tutorials or did you just look at Navone and Freeman's pics?

 

Thanks,

Jon

[Parlo]

dj_jonnyg - I've started a page of details on the rig - here - scroll down for some QTs with bones.

 

I'll add to it when I get the time. Let me know which specific areas need the most detail.

 

I worked the rig out by going through Victor and Shaun's threads with a fine tooth comb and doing some experiments of my own. I've added a couple of things and simplified others. However the basic principles remain the same.

[dj_jonnyg]

Thanks a ton!

 

That looks like it's gonna turn into one heck of a tutorial which I'm sure many of us will be able to benefit from. Unfortunately, the firewall at work makes downloading extreeeemly slow, but I'll view the vids when I get home.

 

Thanks a lot,

Jon

[tobinjim]

Parlo!

 

Great new character -- and the other comments are right on: Instant appeal.

 

I have to say I like his modeled or painted hair back at the beginning better. It looked more Muppetish to me. The new hair looks like the face is a mask in front of a smaller head that actually has hair

 

Will you be animating him in Muppet style, using wire guide poles?

 

Bravo!!

[amarillospider]

Oy Parlo,

 

You've probably already though of this, but I thought I'd mention it. In your fingertip example you said you key the scale of mouth corner bones to make them keep their proportion. It strikes me that the 'ol toon eye trick would save time for this. You know how if you want an elongated flattish sphere for a toon eye you model the eye as a sphere with a parent bone from the center of the sphere, then in a pose you change the scale of the bone to get your toon shape, and now when you move the pupil bone (starting from the center also) in an action the pupil slides along the new shape of the eye. If you make a parent bone with all the head bones as children, and scale the parent bone in a pose (Probably your rig pose) then all of the children bones (like the mouth bones) would stay on the surface without having to key scale changes. (I'd probably make a temporary sphere a child of the Parent bone so that in the pose I hae a better since of where I'm scaling it to.) Did that make sense? You probably already thought of it anyway.

 

Anyway, like your characters, they are so lively.

 

-Alonso

[Parlo]

Interesting idea Amarillo - I think I understand it

 

The only problem I can see is that it would be a case of modelling something one way - then adapting it in a pose. This can be fiddly. If you wanted to make a perfectly geometrically smooth model, this might be an answer. The keying of a bones scale through it's rotation means that you can have a CP hug any contour.

 

What's so great about all these techniques is that they are constantly developing. What has really made this viable as a method for rigging a mouth is the advent of CP weighting in A:M. Now that this feature has been made even more easier to use and adjust, I expect that the bone-rig is going to evolve alot faster.

[Chance]

Holy crap thats awesome.

 

I've just started learning how to properly rig models (thankfully I've started to get pretty comfortable with modelling). Though the whole face rigging is still a mystery to me.

 

For a newbie like me, are there any resources (online or book) that you would recomend to get at least a small grasp on where to start. I looked at the page where you have the few animations and a picture of the bones set-up and couldn't help but scratch my head

 

Anyways, wow I can't wait to see how this model progresses, the hair really adds to the character, I'm anticipating seeing the rest of him.

[Parlo]

I've quickly made a very simple model to show how the basics of this rig works.

 

Here's the project file - Right Click me and "Save target as..."

 

This is a good starting point for anybody wanting to experiment with a rig like this. Be sure to read through Victor's Thread for more info.

 

Stuff to take note of in the project file:

 

1)The use of a pose to control other poses (AKA "nested poses") - The Top_Lip_UD pose does just this. This is good reference for anybody interested in this concept - face rig or no face rig.

 

2)The rotation of the centre bone in the L/R poses cancelling each other out.

 

3)The use of CP weighting - Right click one of the CPs and select "Edit CP Weights.

 

Take the rig apart, make the bones visible one at a time, look at what each relationship does. All the basics are there.

 

I'll add some more detail when I get the time - I'm hectic on another A:M project at the moment so it might not be for a couple of days.

[ragtag]

Very nice model, love the simple cartoony style.

 

Once you're finished with him you should use him as your avatar...your current one freaks me out.

 

Ragnar

[dj_jonnyg]

Hey,

 

I'm trying to implement the rig. It's going smoothly so far except for one thing. My character has teeth as well. How did you make sure that the CP weights didn't affect and distort the teeth?

 

Thank you,

Jon

[gazzamataz]

Woooooo... slow down all of you... God, I feel like I am lagging behind big time. CP weights, Victor Navone, Shaun Freeman I can't keep up, I'm geting too old!!!

 

Never mind. I guess I'll just sit back and watch Sam's great work on Kevin (I am assuming he's based on Kevin from Kevin & Perry?).

 

In fact I might start doing this meself on one of my urchins... Alf where are you... come ere you little bleeder... you gonna have some MAJOR surgery... what da ya mean will it hurt... just do as your'e told... stop figiting...

 

[CRToonMike]

Brilliant work Parlo!

 

I'm also exaimining the Raf face rigging thread and came up with pretty much the same conclusions as you did. Only thing I added was to make the rough mouth shapes (upper lip up-down, lower lip up-down, et al.) from Osipa's "Stop Staring" book as poses and, maybe, use nested relationships to do a Blair set of poses.

 

One implied thing about your interpetation of the rigging is that the movement of splines keeps the volume of the mass consistent. That is, it looks like skin/muscle moving over bone.

 

Great job there! Good acting from the model and the expressions are just spot-on for what he's saying and it gives him an individual character.

[Parlo]

What with one thing and another poor Kevin has been neglected for a while. I've managed to spend a bit more time with him recently and have started work on a proper scene to fully test his rig.

 

QT - Sorenson3 - 1mb

 

Other than the lip sync (which I did first because I was feeling reckless), it's all just basic blocking... ie. rough-city!

 

I've used video reference for the first time on this piece - at the moment the blocking is pretty slavish to it. Now I need to shift, push, tweak and pump those poses to make them pack a bit more punch.

 

I don't know how fast this is going to progress, but as always, all comments more than welcome.

 

CRToonMike - This new clip is animated using a set of finer controls than the last one. There are alot more of them, and they are alot harder to manage, but I think the results pay off.

 

gazzamataz - He's actually called Kevin because a really early test with him was done to a clip of Kevin Spacey. Though there is more than a touch of Harry Enfield's character about him!

 

dj_jonnyg - I'm probably a bit late with this now (sorry) but I edit the CP weights by selecting the CP(s), right clicking, then selecting "Edit CP weights". I find that this is much more powerful than using the "compute all cp weights" function.

[strohbehn]

Wow! Your lipsync is amazing on this. Really nice job. Great character. Thanks, too, for all your posts on the facial rigging setup. It's powerful stuff that I'm trying to get a grip on.

 

Mark

[Parlo]

Thanks strohbehn - I'm glad you could decipher my notes on the rig. I hope to be able to write about it in more detail when I get time.

 

I've done another pass -

 

QT - Sorenson3 - 1mb

 

I've started to put detail into some of the gestures, and have tried to push the poses further. It's looking better to my eye.

[starwarsguy]

That's a grt animation! Perfect! Pixarish even!

[nerrazzi]

hehe, that's funny...

 

Love the model. Lip sync is right on target, great work...

[ypoissant]

Great simple and effective model and I want to compliment you on your fine animation skills.

 

Your animation is tightly timed and snappy with the right expressions and body postures. Very good. The only part that don't work for me is the gesture that goes with "Or I'm completely crazy". I understand that you used video reference but this gesture might be related to what will follow which we don't see in the clip.

[JBarrett]

Looks like a cool beginning, Sam! I love how you incorporated some of Jimmy Stewart's mannerisms into this guy.

 

The lip sync is pretty good, but could still use some polish in a few places. The last line especially feels like it needs more work.

 

Keep at it!

[lazz]

Wow. very well done. his expressions are timed perfectly with the sound clip. And the use of his eyes to express thought before saying he's dead right or crazy is brilliantly done. Great job. But there's a part that stands out to me that looks a little off. When he begins the line, either I'm dead right or I'm crazy, his chin does something wierd. Like there are two stripes on it or something. Possibly caused by the mesh or the lighting perhaps? all in all though very well done!

[Parlo]

Thanks guys,

 

I got to spend another couple of hours on this tonight (I'm trying to shut my eyes by 2am at the latest these days...)

 

QT - Sorenson3 - 1mb

 

I've started to put in some detail, a bit of weight , and to try out some breakdown poses. Some stuff works, other stuff doesn't.. quite.... yet.

 

I'm finding particular problems with the last section - "either I'm dead right, or I'm crazy". Looking at the reference footage, Stewart tenses his entire body and kinda internally erupts. There's a real sense of him controlling his outburst (helped by a great classic-cut suit I might add). I'm going for this but at the moment it feels underpowered in both the body and the lipsync ( I think that both Yves and Justin were pointing to this in their posts). Next session I get I'm going to try to push this further, perhaps give the "eruption" a bigger anticipation, and make him visibly reign himself in more.

 

The very beginning too is not quite doing what I want it to do - I can't get the sense of him pushing himself away from his pedestal right. Leaving the hands there for longer gives it that "doing too much at once" feel... taking them away earlier makes him more floaty. I might try adding 20 frames at the top of the piece to better achieve this. But I kinda feel that's cheating. If I do, I trust that you'll all be discreet about it.

 

xade - the lines in the lower lip at that point are a realtime render glitch, and don't show up in a final render. What's happening is that I'm pushing his jaw out to try to stress his clenched teeth. It's not quite working....

 

Justin - The sync feels chatty to me between "guy like ME" and "first PLACE"... In the clip the words are tripping off the tongue - keeping up with them without over doing it is a difficult balance to get right. "Hate" also feels a little rushed too. I need to push some more keys around.

 

I'm really enjoying working on this piece, primary because using the performance reference frees me up to concentrate more on the mechanics than the acting. I know the acting works, it's just my job here to sell it as best I can.

 

Anyhow - All comments more than welcome.

[J. Baker]

Looks great Parlo! Waiting for the next session but take your time. Cheers

[tobinjim]

This is such a good piece it feels wrong to nitpick on it!

 

There's one combination of eye and head movement that seems repeated... less so in the latter versions. Right at the "like this" which follows "try your patience" his eyes move up and to his right the same way they did just a little bit earlier. I think what caught my eye was the uniformity of the movement both times. Since there's less of it in the more recent versions, I'd guess you see it too and are tweaking it out.

 

That said, this is awesome work.

[HeadlessBill]

Parlo, it's looking real good

 

This is my suggestion on the 'Either I'm right or I'm crazy' part. Don't move the character during the pause before he says the line. I like the glance down and looking back up during the pause, but extend it to fill the whole pause, so he looks up just as he is about to speak. It'll look more like he is gathering his thoughts.

 

Have him moving forward quickly as he gestures as he says 'Either I'm right...' and stop his forward movement at the same place you have him now when he does the arm swing on '...or I'm crazy'. When he does move, have his eyes lead the movement, don't do the look back up and move simultaneously. Have the movement follow a split second after the look up and in the exact direction of the look.

 

As for the arm swing, just do the swing sharp and quick from the elbow only, don't move the upper arm. Also extend the fingers on that hand when he does it, it makes for a more powerful gesture. The curved fingers and bent elbow make it appear he is uncertain in his conviction. Straighter, quicker and sharper movements show more conviction of the character in what it is they are saying.

 

Some brow action, predominately at the end, may help with emphasis of the lines as well, or it might detract. I tend to furrow my brow a little as I say the 'or I'm crazy.'

 

I'm sorry, but I feel like I've just delived some notes to my actors after a rehearsal. I also hope this makes sense.

 

I'm definately going to have to learn that bone set-up for lip-syncing.

[Parlo]

I woke up with some ideas this morning so indulged in a little am A:M -

 

QT - Sorenson3 - 1.1mb

 

I've started to tidy stuff up abit, and have tightened alot the transitions. I'm happy with how it all looks now... all that's left to do is a "straight ahead" pass on each element to keep it all "alive".. then sort out the sync problems and put in the rest of the facial animation.

 

Headless - I see what you mean. I realised that I'd missed a beat on "dead right" and I think that having now addressed that, the move forward feels more natural. Before the move forward was heading inevitably into "CRAZY!" - it was one big sweeping change into the final gesture. Now I've put in a slight additional pose on "dead right" that helps make the last gesture bigger. See what you think.

 

tobinjim - You're right. I've been trying to make that feel less obviously a repeated move even though I like the fact he looks back up to the same place. It's a fine line.

 

Thanks for the comments guys. This should be polished off before too long. Then I can put some hair on him - Jimmy Stewart style of course.

[KenH]

Excellent! I'd personally put abit more eye/brow acting(at the word hate) in there. The rest is perfect IMO.

[modernhorse]

Wonderful so far Parlo !

 

My favorite bit is when he says 'try your patience like this' - those are wonderful small gestures and work so well.

 

On 'either I'm dead right' line ... I think the left hand movement isn't extreme enough on the word 'dead'. My two pence. I look forward to more.

 

Doug

[starwarsguy]

I still can't get over this! It's very good work. I've tried making my own unique character before, but I just can't get the mouth. How did you go about that? Did you model it all by hand?