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2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 10:09 pm
by dkwroot

download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwzk-f ... sp=sharing


When you open the AS file, you'll see that I used target bones in a unique way to achieve smartbone control through bone scale compression. This essentially allowed me to create 'zones' of correction, where two smartbones are combined and then corrected for deformation.

If Anime Studio 11 allows us to control smartbones directly by scale control, then this method of design will be obsolete and replaced by a far more efficient one. The unique thing about this technique is that it gives very fine control to the animator, allowing them to control every aspect of a head turn.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones

Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 12:48 am
by synthsin75
WOW! That is brilliant! I've been trying to figure out a way to do that for a long time. Thanks for sharing.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones

Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 8:09 am
by dkwroot
You're welcome. :D

Back in November I suggested adding bone compression and adding the ability to control actions with bone scale/position. I'm really crossing my fingers that the AS team listened, because those combined additions allow us to achieve powerful 2.5D rigs more efficiently than my dirty method. If you analyse the rig, you'll quickly see that a lot of the bones are only there to compensate for the lack of scale/position control of smartbone actions.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones

Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 3:52 pm
by Onionskin
Good thinking, those triggers for the smart bone corrections are great!

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones

Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 4:16 pm
by Víctor Paredes
Could you make a tutorial about this? I'm not getting the technology behind it.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 12:23 am
by synthsin75
Yeah, I know several people who have been asking for scale and translate control of smart bone actions ever since we got smart bones. But yours is a great workaround for the time being. I've used a simple rig to convert scale to rotation for years...just couldn't figure a way to make it react to multiple smart bones correctly. Thanks again.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 11:33 am
by dkwroot
selgin wrote:Could you make a tutorial about this? I'm not getting the technology behind it.
I updated the first post with a tutorial video. :D
With the new target bone switching in AS11, I think I can make this method even better. For example, we should be able to create smartbone 'regions' by using the ability switch out active bones. Basically, just use the X and Y bones to control which bones are currently being used for targeting. If a bone is currently not in use, have it target a dummy until the master control enters it's region.

I'll have to wait for the release to start experimenting with this.

You guys are in the beta team, right? Share this video with the developers and hopefully we can get position/scale smartbone control added into 11.2 :D

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 3:10 pm
by Víctor Paredes
That is incredibly smart! Thank you for the tutorial, it's very clear.
I have been thinking a lot about combining smart bones. For example:
You have B1 for up/down and B2 for left/right
I'm thinking in a new kind of smart bone action which could be named "B1&B2 1". So inside that action you make the corrections the character needs.
What do you think about that idea?

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 4:36 pm
by dkwroot
selgin wrote:That is incredibly smart! Thank you for the tutorial, it's very clear.
I have been thinking a lot about combining smart bones. For example:
You have B1 for up/down and B2 for left/right
I'm thinking in a new kind of smart bone action which could be named "B1&B2 1". So inside that action you make the corrections the character needs.
What do you think about that idea?
Corrective actions are another method that the Anime Studio team could use. Basically, a new action is created with a keyword like "+" or "&" which tells the program that the action is a blended corrective action.

Inside the action, the user would see the two actions they're blending together being animated out together inside the blended actions timeline. The user would just make modifications along the timeline to correct for defects inside of the blend.

The only trouble the developers are going to have figuring out is how to control how the blended action is animated. In other words, how do the two actions that it blends go about actually controlling how the blended action is activated.

Luckily, this problem has already been solved by other programs. Basically, they have to take the active frame of the two actions they're trying to blend and then normalize them using the length of their respective actions. Take this image for example:

Image

Suppose the action X 1 is 120 frames long and the action y 1 is 50 frames long. Now suppose X 1 is currently showing frame 45 of its action and y 1 is showing frame 30 of its action. Their level of activation is then represented by (active frame/frame length) or in the case of X 1 it would be (45/120) and y1 would be (30/50).

The activation value of the blended action 'x 1 + y 1' would then be calculated using this formula: (((x1+y1)*x1*y1)/2) which would be:
( ( (45/120) + (30/50) ) * (45/120) * (30/50) ) / 2 which would be equal to (351/3200) or 0.1097

This means that if the corrective action 'x 1 + y 1' is 140 frames in length, then it would be displaying frame 15 of its action.

Notice that if one of the values of the actions used in the blend is zero, then the entire blended action is set to zero. This effectively creates a range and keeps blend ranges from interfering with one another.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 5:51 pm
by dueyftw
Here is another version with a few less bones. Not better or worse, but a slightly different approach.



The file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/81rs69mizhc5m ... .anme?dl=0


The advantage to this method is you can add as many fix smart bones as needed.
Dale

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 11:54 pm
by funksmaname
WHoaHA! very nicely done!! clever and quite simple when you break it down, thanks for the video.
For the uninitiated, might be useful to have a short video on how to create the corrective actions? :)

Exciting stuff!

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 4:20 am
by DK
Hi dkwroot,
Just watched your tutorial and it's great. only thing I don't get is HOW you made the CORRECTIVE smartbone action?
What method did you use to show what points to correct and where they should be placed?

I've just been pulling my hair out over this exact problem with clashing smartbone actions but I cannot find a way to isolate the shape and the points that are distorting so I can correct them.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27458&p=155389#p155389

Cheers
D.K

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 9:37 am
by dkwroot
Creating corrective actions is very easy. Just create an action with the same name as the bone that you're using for correction. Inside of this action, activate the two smartbones that you want to blend together and you'll see them activate inside of your corrective action. Then just go through the action and make corrections. When you finish, just delete the keyframes of the blended smartbones and you're done.

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Sun May 24, 2015 9:18 pm
by Lychee
Hi.

Nice work Dkwroot, it remind me the Dragon Matrix script of Sang820.

But i dont understand how your technic's works with all thoses bones, so i tried simplify it.
I used the real 3d depth to help me simulate a tilted head in every direction and a switch layer to create a full headturn.
It's not perfect but i think it's pretty usable.

Image

Here is the file if you want it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwmqvw02uwcfh ... .anme?dl=0

Re: 2.5D head with corrective smartbones (now with tutorial)

Posted: Sun May 24, 2015 9:37 pm
by synthsin75
Nice control of the full 360, Lychee.