Smart bones change everything! Some examples

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erikk
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by erikk »

Thanks, all. You've been very helpful, and I have the one-frame thing working. Thought I was being clever not needing two actions for travelling in opposite directions. Stupid stupid me.

And Smart Bones do change everything. Worth the upgrade price by quite a lot.

Erik
chucky
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by chucky »

erikk wrote:Thanks, all. You've been very helpful, and I have the one-frame thing working. Thought I was being clever not needing two actions for travelling in opposite directions. Stupid stupid me.

And Smart Bones do change everything. Worth the upgrade price by quite a lot.

Erik
You are not so stupid Erik, I have been using a one action method since day one and had no issues.
It's apparently not recommended but I like it.

This is how I do it .....
frame 1............ extreme anti clockwise
frame 50........... copy frame 0( keep this updated)
frame 100 ..........extreme clockwise

Use this method at your own risk, it works for me. :D
Worse comes to worse, you can always copy the action and slide the keyframes to make it a 2 action smart bone. :wink:
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Lukas
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Lukas »

chucky wrote:
erikk wrote:Thanks, all. You've been very helpful, and I have the one-frame thing working. Thought I was being clever not needing two actions for travelling in opposite directions. Stupid stupid me.

And Smart Bones do change everything. Worth the upgrade price by quite a lot.

Erik
You are not so stupid Erik, I have been using a one action method since day one and had no issues.
It's apparently not recommended but I like it.

This is how I do it .....
frame 1............ extreme anti clockwise
frame 50........... copy frame 0( keep this updated)
frame 100 ..........extreme clockwise

Use this method at your own risk, it works for me. :D
Worse comes to worse, you can always copy the action and slide the keyframes to make it a 2 action smart bone. :wink:
I also work like this. There is less morphing going this way :)
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funksmaname
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by funksmaname »

lukas, I had a thought about your other character with the blinking issue.
What if the starting state was closed eyes? the open eyes might be slightly off but it matters less when the eyes are open as the points at least won't overlap - the slight offness at 3/4 won't hopefully be noticeable. Try it and report back!

The problem with working with 'extremes at frame 0' is that creating blends for expressions and whatnot is that you're then having to blend combinations of other smart bones to get a 'neutral' state - which might not be ideal? I usually draw my characters in an expression when initially drawing them to give them character, but it occured to me that I should 'zero' their face to a neutral position before coming up with alternative morph targets as otherwise everything is over compensating...
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Lukas
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Lukas »

funksmaname wrote:lukas, I had a thought about your other character with the blinking issue.
What if the starting state was closed eyes? the open eyes might be slightly off but it matters less when the eyes are open as the points at least won't overlap - the slight offness at 3/4 won't hopefully be noticeable. Try it and report back!
Not a bad idea, I'll give that a shot when I've got some free time!
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Víctor Paredes
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Hi, I just want to post another rig. A friend asked me help for this character. She needed some head turn. It looked simple, but finally I had to use a lot of masking tricks to make it work.
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Admiral Halsey
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Admiral Halsey »

selgin wrote:Hi, I just want to post another rig. A friend asked me help for this character. She needed some head turn. It looked simple, but finally I had to use a lot of masking tricks to make it work.
Very nice rig, selgin. Do you have eyes and mouth mask in one general parent bone layer so you can do this whole headturn controlled by one bone?
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jezjones29
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by jezjones29 »

Nice rig!

When you use smart bones for your mouths, how do you keep track of different mouth shapes? When using switches it's easy, but knowing where the bones should be could be tricky. Any tips?
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funksmaname
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by funksmaname »

jez, you can save your bone positions into a normal action which could be recalled/used similarly to switch layers, or with blend morphs too, but I think part of the beauty of this method is the subtle differences every time you put the mouth in a position, the mix isn't 100% the same which adds organic variety... though you could save some poses and then tweak them slightly too, would be quicker ;)
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Víctor Paredes
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Admiral Halsey wrote:Very nice rig, selgin. Do you have eyes and mouth mask in one general parent bone layer so you can do this whole headturn controlled by one bone?
Thanks, Admiral Halsey
Yes, before version 9 I used a different masked bone layers for mouth and eyes. Now, as I need to have everything inside only one bone layer, I had to re think my rig and use a combination of masking and shape order tricks for the head. I hope to share this head construction soon, it's pretty simple, anyway.
jezjones29 wrote:Nice rig!
When you use smart bones for your mouths, how do you keep track of different mouth shapes? When using switches it's easy, but knowing where the bones should be could be tricky. Any tips?
Thanks, Jezjones29
In most channels you can see a gray and a red line. The red line shows you only the keyframes of the selected bones. So I just select that bone/bones and edit.
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Admiral Halsey
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Admiral Halsey »

selgin wrote:
Admiral Halsey wrote:Very nice rig, selgin. Do you have eyes and mouth mask in one general parent bone layer so you can do this whole headturn controlled by one bone?
Thanks, Admiral Halsey
Yes, before version 9 I used a different masked bone layers for mouth and eyes. Now, as I need to have everything inside only one bone layer, I had to re think my rig and use a combination of masking and shape order tricks for the head. I hope to share this head construction soon, it's pretty simple, anyway.
I imagine it's pertty hard to combine two different masks (mouth and eyes) under one parent layer. But I assume that you now use shape order for mouth animation, am I right?
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Víctor Paredes
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Admiral Halsey wrote:I imagine it's pertty hard to combine two different masks (mouth and eyes) under one parent layer. But I assume that you now use shape order for mouth animation, am I right?
Actually, it's simple to have two masks (one for eyes, other for mouth) inside one bone layer. You can use "clear the mask, then add this layer to it" and have as many masks as you want. The problem is that you can't add a mask to another mask.
For example, Imagine I have 3 layers: head, mouth and teeth.
To simulate a 3d rotation the head vector layer is masking the mouth, so I can move the mouth from side to side and the mask keeps it inside the head. Now, if I create a a new "clear the mask..." on the mouth -to make the teeth layer be inside the mouth- the mask will work for the mouth and teeth, but the entire mouth won't be masked by the head. So I can't have an addition of masks like: teeth<mouth<head
I got a solution for this, it's not perfect and won't work on some characters, but I think it will be useful for most. I want to explain it better in the future, but the principle is to have a vector layer with a simple head color shape with holes for eyes and mouth. Behind that shape, there are the pupils and teeth, so that hole will simulate a mask. Then that unique layer is masked by the head, so you get a "masks" for eyes and mouth and a real mask for the entire head.
I suppose this will make it clearer:
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AmigaMan
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by AmigaMan »

That's ingenious. I think I can follow it :D I really should experiment more with masking myself.

Love your Avatar btw.
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Barry Baker
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by Barry Baker »

Brilliant, and simple too.
tatrik
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Re: Smart bones changes everything! Some examples

Post by tatrik »

We are now using a method with holes on the face layer for the eyes and mouth instead of masking. I think it is much simpler. Selgin, I want to ask whether this masking method is more preferable to making holes on the face?
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