Cunning way to do Head Turns

[lostbear]

I just finished my final year project at uni....and i used Moho! Everyone else did 3D and I went down the more traditional route coz i didnt want all the problems of rendering and keyframing for 2 weeks....

I needed to make not one, but 2 characters turn their heads round and look off into the distance. No way was I handdrawing the keyframes, so I came up with a cunning plan.

Im going to explain it briefly, if enough people want an indepth how two, then I shall write one and post it on the boards or my website.

This process takes about 2 hours to setup start to finish. That might sound long, but it is very much worth it. After wards, you will have much much much better facial/lipsync animation then you can achieve with moho and papaygo.

here goes then..

1. Use a 3d app (3dsmax, blender(blender is free!!)) to model and rig a 2d head. *hears gasps from reader* ok ok...calm down. its really not that hard. Once you have the model it will take literally an hour to rig it. Make the eyes and mouth seperate ELEMENTS. not seperate objects, ELEMENTS. This is specific to 3ds max, dont know about other apps. The morpher tool works by morphing the vertex positions, and if you model the eyes and head seperate it cant work properly.

2. To make the head turn, you need to make two morph targets. One were you create the motion of the head turning. Copy this one, but move the mouth and eyes right off the face !! Render your animation out as transparant targa files or png.

3. Use after effects or similar to layer the two animations ontop of each other, and mask the part were the eyes slide off the face. This will have the apperance of the head turning 90 degrees, ending up with the back of the head towards the camera.

4. Export this from after effects and Quicktime file making sure u choose the animation profile and millions+ colors. this is vital, since it will store and alpha channel in the quicktime movie.

5. Set up your chrachter in Moho as per the help file that comes with it, but use the quicktime movie as the head!

6 *OPTIONAL* if you got through all that ok, you can try loading a sound file into 3dsmax and lypsyncing your 2d character head to it.

There is an example of this on my showreel....the two chrachters that wave at the bus have been made in this way.

http://www.jamessteel.co.uk/SHOWREEL.wmv

Happy animating!

[jahnocli]

Just seen your showreel -- there is a *big* difference in quality between the 3D models at the beginning and the 2D characters later on...

[lostbear]

the blue flying creature was done a year before the two waving at the bus. The difference in quality comes from 2 completly different syles. Im not sure what you are driving at...

[jahnocli]

Well, the 3D characters look quite accomplished, and the 2D characters...don't...which is a shame,

[heyvern]

I don't know about that head turn technique...

You would be "locked" in to the 3d software... unless you chose to trace the frames of the movie file...

If you change the "style" or the look of the animation you have to do the head turns over again from scratch.

It seems like more work than to do a head turn in Moho with native splines.

If there was a head turn using this technique in your sample... it didn't stand out any more than one done with vectors.

Just my opinion.

-Vern

[lostbear]

this method is much better then using moho and papygo for your head animation. The Example i posted probably wasnt the best to show it.

Your not locked into the 3d animation program. Your merely using its power to create a much better animation.

Here is a vid showing my 2d charachter head and its simple rig. It took me about 1.5 hours to setup, including modelling it. The high level of control you get afterwards makes alot of things possible, and much easier.

http://www.jamessteel.co.uk/2dfacerigs.wmv

[lostbear]

I have begun the tutorial writting. I will post a link to it when I have created enough to show it.

lb

[heyvern]

When I say you are "locked" in to the 3D program... I just mean that because you are using another program to render images to use in Moho... AND also ANOTHER program to compostite.

... you would continue to need those other programs to change your Moho animation.

Instead of "Moho" you need "Moho" and two additional programs.

This is a fine technique if that is the "look" you want.

I don't know about anyone else... but one of the reasons I use Moho is to GET AWAY from 3d.

I have 3d apps up the wazoo and AE... but they aren't on my laptop... and probably wouldn't run on it anyway (slow) but Moho runs like a champ when I need to animate "on the road".

-Vern

[lostbear]

Fair comment. I do admit that this technique does require several extra pieces of software. However, I had to work fast to create an animation, and so invented/perfected this technique which i believe saves bags of time.

When ive finished the tutorial, take a peek. If its useful to you, then if u still feel its complex then never mind, someone else may find it useful.

[lostbear]

Hi all,

I have written the first two parts of this tutorial and im moving through the last couple of sections now.

You can read so far at...


http://www.jamessteel.co.uk/headturn/

[lostbear]

Anyone finding this intresting and useful so far?? should have the next part ready very soon.

Bear.

[heyvern]

Unfortunately for me...

I am not as familair with the 3D app you use for your tutorial. A lot of the technique is specific to polygons... I mostly use Hash A:M and have a very rudementary working knowledge of polygons and morph targets.

However, I do completely understand the concept and it would seem like a way to do it. I could probably do this with A:M but... If it were me... I would use this technique but "trace" the resulting shapes in Moho so that the head turn was all vectors. This would then cut me loose from having to use those other apps for small adjustments changes later.

If you have your tutorial almost done finishing it would be up to you. I think the steps involved may seem simple if someone is familair with the 3D application... but I got a bit overwhelmed a few steps in. (I get overwhelmed using Moho's 3D stuff)

It just seemed at first glance like a lot of work... just my opinion of course.

-Vern

[cribble]

I don't use a 3D app for my head turns, I do everything directly in moho. This tutorial is only good for people with experiance in 3D applications. I have no experiance what-so-ever in 3D, and i'm sure many new user starting out, who want to learn this technique, don't know how to use 3D applications properly either.

Though i do think the end results are good, but i still think you spend too much time in another application and not animating.

[Bones3D]

I've actually been trying to figure out a way to pull this off in Moho with vector objects that can be tweened. So far, my plan is to create a basic head object with foreground (face parts) and background (hair) elements, morph/translate each part as needed (ignoring z-sorting) over time, duplicate the foreground/background layers (inverting their z position), then enable/disable the visibility of each layer as they pass from foreground to background.

The alternative to this, might be to create some really complex masking groups, but I'm thinking it may require several more duplicated layers than the method described above.

Anyone care to take a stab at a full 180 degree rotation of a 2D character using Moho vector objects and uploading the resulting .moho file as a demonstration?

[lostbear]

I came up with this method because I am most comfortable with 3d soft but needed to use moho.....so i am the reverse of u guys. I dont know moho that well, although from what ive used knowing the 3d software gave me a big leg up, especially when it came to bones.

Ill keep working through....even if its not useful to u people, I can give it to my university for other students to see. they are about to by several copies of moho on my recomendation.