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View Full Version : Animating a cartoon style EYE :(

sinistar
04-17-2003, 06:09 PM
Hi i'm trying to animate the pupil of a cartoon eye and there are problems all over the board. The root of the problem is that the eye is shaped oddly so I can't meerly rotate the eyeball.

So I tried animating the UVs which only seems to work sometimes. And I can't find a way to add it into a setdriven key for the rig.

I tried a lattice deformer on a sphere with a pupil and simply rotating the deformed sphere which works but the problem is the mesh twitches as it rolls around inside the deformer and looks pretty nasty.

The next thing I tried was animating the texture map and using Frame extensio (a lot of work to simply move an eyeball). This method does not seem like it can be set driven keyed which isn't too helpful.

Im now thinking blendshapes might work but I forsee problems with this method aswell.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know,.

thanks
Houkah
04-17-2003, 06:43 PM
since it's a cartoon style eye is it just the white area for the eye and a black area for the pupil? You could have them as 2 seperate meshes then constrain the pupil mesh to the geometry of the white mesh (constrain geometry) and just animate the pupil mesh however u want after that. Might work? :shrug:
mental
04-17-2003, 07:15 PM
Originally posted by sinistar
I tried a lattice deformer on a sphere with a pupil and simply rotating the deformed sphere which works but the problem is the mesh twitches as it rolls around inside the deformer and looks pretty nasty.

i think that this is the way to go.

i'm not sure why the mesh is 'twitching'. perhaps the lattice is too small. if so you will need to scale the lattice (by selecting/scalling both the lattice and its base) so that no point on the sphere goes outside of it. once it is scaled deform the lattice to the appropriate shape and rotate the eyeball.
Hugh
04-17-2003, 08:03 PM
There has been a thread on this in the character rigging forum....

The reason it twitches is because the CVs on a NURBS sphere are outside the sphere - so the best thing to do would be either to scale the sphere down a bit once the lattice is created, or (my prefered way), create a poly cube around the sphere and scale it up before adding the lattice to both objects. Then delete the cube, and you've got a larger lattice on your sphere.
DesignDawg
04-17-2003, 08:21 PM
No, you can just scale the lattice, like mental said.

Ricky

P.S.-- There is a tutorial somewhere about "how to rig a cartoon-style bird" or something like that. It goes through the whole process.
Hugh
04-17-2003, 08:29 PM
If you scale the lattice, doesn't that scale the object up with it? :p
mental
04-17-2003, 09:30 PM
uh guys... yes you can scale a lattice. :rolleyes:

like i said earlier. you select both the lattice and the lattice base then scale it.

this allows you to size the lattice without affecting the object.

but remember that you must scale the lattice before changing its shape... or else it won't work.

[Edit]: also if you want to get the lattice back to a scale of 1, perform a freeze transform on the lattice itself but leave the lattice base alone (and remember to hide the base if you're not going to use it).

-mental :surprised
sinistar
04-17-2003, 10:26 PM
mental that worked like a charm! the results are quite cartoony too. Thanks!

I appreciate everyones replies here, gracias!
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