Small Tutorial for my Animation Interface
(made for PHEARIELORD and anyone interested in how to use my animation interface for combination-sculpting)
| When you have your geometry finished, start with your blend shape targets. You may take a look at my thread in SpiraLoid for more information on how to choose what will become a new target and what will be done through combining the targets. In short: Don't do full expressions! Make single muscle moves (or use FACS). Examples would be innerBrowUp (left and right separated, of course), outerBrowUp, etc.. You will end up with 20 to 60+ plain targets. Next is to do the combinations... When your blend shape system is ready (you don't need a combi system for this, but I'd recommend it), you should start building your animation UI. First start DPK_animationInterfaceSetup and look at the attributes of the control object. Start creating sections to organize these attrs. Try to create the sections based on the area the attrs have influence on. They are VERY important, so take some time for it. It will pay off later, I promise you. The sections will define where you can later apply a preset to. To be able to fade in a preset just for the brows, you'd have to create a section with just the brow attrs. Example sections would be: - eyes You will end up with about 10 to 20 sections. Sort them from upper face to lower face. You can also create an empty section (with the name: ---LowerFace---) in the middle to mark the border between the upper and lower face (you need at least version 1.02 for empty sections to work). Now put all your attributes into the defined sections. To move an attr, open the section it is currently in by double clicking it. The attrs will show in the right list. Select the section you want to move the attrs in, select the attrs you want to move, and press the move button. Double click each section to make sure the attrs are in the correct order. If not, change the order or move the attrs to a different section. VERY IMPORTANT: Click the "Apply" button. Otherwise everything will be lost as soon as you close the setup window!!! Start the anim UI and make sure everything is laid out as you wanted. Use all the nice sliders and create complete facial expressions. Now you can add combis to finish your facial rig. As a last step you create all the presets. This is the fun part! Use every slider available to make the expression really nice. In animation later you can/should always tweak the final look with the sliders. As a last little tip: Presets are fun but don't use them the whole time, especially in a longer animation 'cause the audience will notice! Have fun, Daniel |