WhiteLand Character Rig Head Turn

[ianmage1]

Everyone else seems to be sharing head turn animations, so I thought I'd post a head turn animation test of my latest character rig; it's certainly not perfect though...

I regret starting this in ASP9.5, before I upgraded to ASP10. In ASP10, I could have rigged both head turn directions into one single action, rather than creating one action for the left turn and another for the right turn; the same applies to the "head turn up/down" action. When you have two separate actions for each direction, the interpolation doesn't flow as well as you'd like it to; at the midpoint of the turn cycle, you can tell that a separate action is being used (you can especially see this at 0:14-0:17 of my video).
Now that ASP10 can combine both turn directions into one action, I could make a much smoother head turn with uninterrupted interpolation. But that means that I have to completely re-rig the head turn actions... Ah well, it's a work in progress.

[sargumphigaus]

Brilliant.

[funksmaname]

Looks really nice, well done.

Bad news is you could do the same thing in 9.5 with both directions in a single action. Try to make sure your bone rotations are set to linear instead of smooth (default?) which might help with the transition around the 0 influence.

you might also be able to combine the two actions into one by dropping an instance of one into the other? this is theory mind, but off the top of my head it could work...

[ianmage1]

Looks really nice, well done.

Bad news is you could do the same thing in 9.5 with both directions in a single action. Try to make sure your bone rotations are set to linear instead of smooth (default?) which might help with the transition around the 0 influence.

you might also be able to combine the two actions into one by dropping an instance of one into the other? this is theory mind, but off the top of my head it could work...

Thanks. I actually do have the interpolation and bone rotations set to linear, but since my two actions aren't [proportionally] perfect mirrors of each other, there's a bad transition around the 0 influence.

Could you explain how I should go about dropping an instance of one action into the other? I wish I could copy/past key frames between actions... that would save a lot of time.

[Danimal]

Definitely one of the better ones I've seen, the depth of the head itself seems to be quite well maintained.

The only thing that caught my eye was with the nose as it passed through the middle. There's a quick bit of it facing completely forward and it looks kind of like a "U" - it doesn't look natural somehow.

[Pesto]

Very nice. Have you thought about adding bones to the hair and using the dynamics function?

[Pinesal]

I love your skills. Your characters are so awesome looking.

[ianmage1]

I made a few fixes and added a subtle (a.k.a. "incomplete") body turn.

The only thing that caught my eye was with the nose as it passed through the middle. There's a quick bit of it facing completely forward and it looks kind of like a "U" - it doesn't look natural somehow.

This is something I struggle with. If the head turns fast enough, the "U" shape isn't noticeable, but when the head turns slowly, the nose's transition is very noticeable. I'm considering making a separate smart bone action to have better control over the speed of the transition.

Very nice. Have you thought about adding bones to the hair and using the dynamics function?

Thank you. With rigs like this, I prefer animating the hair manually. When the head turns, the hair's vector points change too much; attaching bones could be difficult in this case. I'm sure it's possible, but I'm fine with animating it manually.

@sargumphigaus + @Pinesal Thank you.

[funksmaname]

Could you explain how I should go about dropping an instance of one action into the other? I wish I could copy/past key frames between actions... that would save a lot of time.

While you are inside an action editing, select any other action (single click) and the 'insert copy' button becomes active - clicking it will insert a copy of the selected action into your current one. You can also do this to copy the mainline keys into an action.

I think your tests are looking really nice - my only complaint is that the hair drop shadow on the face makes it look quite flat.

[Danimal]

This is something I struggle with. If the head turns fast enough, the "U" shape isn't noticeable, but when the head turns slowly, the nose's transition is very noticeable. I'm considering making a separate smart bone action to have better control over the speed of the transition.

If it just went from one side to the other it probably wouldn't cause any stirs either. Still, it looks good!

[Barry Baker]

To me, this is a very successful head turn. I wouldn't be too concerned about hiding the transition of the nose from one side to the other, or ironing out all the inconsistencies of the 3D illusion. The appeal of 2D is that the artist chooses what to show and how to show it, by defining his or her own graphic language; the appearance of new shapes during the turn is what makes it stand out from ordinary 3D puppets.