Animation : polygon eyelashes?

[Dave Black]

Ok, there are a couple of ways(probably more) of doing this.

First, as you said, it's probably a good idea to make all the lash polys into one object so adding modifiers and manipulating them is easier.

Now, if you simply want the lashes to move into place as the eye morphs, you can use something called a "reactor" controller(not to be mistaken with the reactor physics sym that ships with R5).

What this controller does, is react to changes in another object's transforms, controllers, parameters,etc. It's similar to wire parameters, but allows you to define the start and stop states of an object.

So you could have the reactor controller operate on the blink morph for the eyes. So as the eye morph goes from say, 0-100, you move the lashes to the point you want them when the eye is closed, and now any time that morph is used, the lashes will follow accordingly.

You can also use a linked Xform modifier with a dummy and some wire parameters.

On top of everything, you could add a flex or cloth simulation to get a subtle bounce as the eye opens and shuts.

Hope some of that makes sense. Also, start looking at your own eyes in the mirror and see how it reacts to different motions. You'll notice that the lense of the eye pushes the eyelid around from underneath, and can be a really great effect to boost your realism.

You model looks great from what I can see, btw, I hope you will share it with us when you are done.

Whew. Long post, sorry. I could talk about this stuff for hours. Please forgive me. I'm sure posm and some other members with more experience will throw in some tips as well.

-3DZ

:D

[EricChadwick]

I haven't done much with wiring or reactor controllers, but that sounds like it would fit with your current setup.

One thing to consider, in addition to the cornea effect on the eyelid, is that morphs are linear, so you might want to consider using a progressive morph to avoid clipping into the eyeball.

Or maybe experiment with using bones for the eyelids instead of morph targets. That way you could simply link the eyelashes to the lid bones. But the eyelid deformation can be tricky with bones, since all those verts need to scrunch up and unfold nicely, and the eyelashes need to stay connected all the way across the lip. Maybe multiple bones.

Cool question. Let us know how you end up.

[tonygib]

hay 3DZ and posm, can always count on you guys to give a good reply on the more "higher-end" questions :)

I had thought of bones for eyelids, but it did scare me a little on how it could get a little messy and while ok for a blink, what about expressions that have different effects on the eyes, ie pain

As for reactor, yeah I was thinking of that and/or wiring. In fact I was talking to someone else who pointed out the bloddy obvious...

just setup the eyelashes with morph targets (progressive) for blinking, etc and then wire/reactor link the two morpher channels (the face and eyelash's) so when the eyelid's channel moves so does the eyelashes, duh!

Would take a bit of set-up, with all the morpher channels, etc but once done its done. Tho a bit of extra motion at the ends using flex, etc is a nice idea, will have to look into that once the morphs are done and yeah the eye pushing on the lids etc, worth "looking" into as well. In fact I had thought about that, just too early to do anything about it yet :)

As for the model, you can see recent stuff on my web site listed below and here is the WIP thread for it:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58270

thanks guys

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