CGTalk - Rigging the eyes

DerPapa

08-05-2005, 11:32 AM

Hi folks
I'm using max 7.5 with CS 4.2

I set up my characters eyes like this:

http://www.ground-studios.de/stuff/Woman_eye_rig.jpg

The eyes have a look at constraint. each one looks at a point helper who is linked to a dummy. I use the dummy for animating. I can scale it to bring the pointhelpers together to "focus" things. I usually set a link constraint for the dummy, to be able to link it to the head or to things that are focused by the character.

But: I always have the problem of controlling the animation. In nature, the eyes are moving so fast. They are "hopping" from one item to the next and, in fact, are never connected to the head. It's almost impossible to avoid strange eye movements when you do animation seperately from the head, as you see here:

http://www.ground-studios.de/stuff/Woman_eye_weird.jpg

How do you rig eyes? do you have special advices? is it possible to limit eye rotations, even with look at constraint assigned?

thanks
Michael

marktsang

08-05-2005, 02:24 PM

i rig them so i can have them inherit head roation (always looking straight ahead - there is a separate layer above this for editing) or not - that way you can have them locked to the head or separate.

mark

joconnell

08-05-2005, 03:42 PM

Normally I lead the animation of the eyes by about two frames (when I get to animate which is rare) to give them a little bit of anticipation.

As mark mentioned I also use a system where I have a set of nulls directly in front of the eyes and parented on to the head, another set of nulls parented onto a shape (as you have in your setup) that moves freely, and then a slider controlling a look at constraint on the eyes which will blend between the eyes being constrained to the head or to look at the shape object.

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