Starting on new cartoon.

[x-vishon]

Just started on a new cartoon with some folks. Doing a few head tests before Body Rigging and smart bones. wondering what people think of the style.

https://youtu.be/Gl4rqfNkL0s

[Pinesal]

Looks like a colored version of Betty Boop.

[x-vishon]

Wont once the body is in. There's still some tweaking to be done as well.

[Yosemite Sam]

Looks good! Look forward to seeing the finished product.

[x-vishon]

Still Don't have the real body rigged, set up a temporary rig for the head and lip sync and grabbed a random audio clip to test on as the actual voicing is not in yet. Really rough pass but it gives an idea of the movement of the head.

https://youtu.be/WMZcj_dTBkU

[djwaterman]

For what it's worth this is my opinion. The actual design and lip sync is pretty good, looks professional, but I am not a fan of just scaling and stretching the whole head to get bend and stretch type action. I'd rather see specific bones placed into the head to just effect parts of the head if you want that action. It just makes me think of the digital process when I see that, even though that's what we're using I still think there are aspects of digital manipulation that we should be playing down.

[x-vishon]

There is only actually 3 bones in that rig as I don't have all the final character design sheets. the body is not there yet. once I have them and do the final build and start a final rig I would love to do that. Do you have any recommendations of videos or tutorials that might show how to build rigs that would operate in that way?

[SpaceBoy64]

Looks like a good start.

I agree about the head squishing though. Maybe you could make switch layers with specific emotions or facial poses, and use Interpolate layers.

There are pros and cons to switch layers. Currently I am working with a purchased character that has eyes on a switch layer, no interpolation used. There is a frown switch layer, but the eyes are fixed in one direction. I prefer being able to aim the eyes independently of the facial expression.

-Don

[djwaterman]

Yeah I thought it might be a sort of temporary rig. I think just a bone in the top part of the head that can perform a little strategic squash and stretch, I would do that when I used to rig up 3D characters and it should be the same with 2D. I think version 10 introduced some automatic bone functions as well, that could do some of these follow through dynamic actions.