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boflipy
09-08-2008, 03:07 AM
Hi,

I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how I should rig the eyes for my character here. I want something similar to Pixars Lightning McQueen (I'm a first year though so I don't expect it to be THAT good(!)).
It should have an animatable eye lid, one big visor-like back part for the whites of the eyes and two pupils. And I'll be using blend shapes to animate the outer rim.
Getting a bit stressed now...arrgh. Does anyone know of a good way to do this?

Ideas so far:
-making the visor live, making curves and attaching pupils to them. Then duplicating something similar to the visor and using that as a simple eyelid
-projected texture for pupils/visor and same idea for the eyelid

Would really appreciate anyone sharing their knowledge here.

Thanks alot.
dunkelzahn
09-08-2008, 11:48 AM
Both of your ideas are good.

The first is the more professional, giving you more control over the eye objects for example to create a "look at -dummy" that your eyes will follow. Also you can add blend shape control effects (eyes go big for example) to create advanced animation controls being the best solution for a character suited for extensive animations

The second approach is more rough. While leaving you with some things to do by hand it should save you a lot of time and nerves.

Basically IMO try the first one. If time/nerves run out, then switch to number two.

Have fun
Illusion-shadow
09-08-2008, 05:24 PM
we did something like this a while back, where we use normal map to for the eyes on a flat plane, then we apply a uvw map and use reaction manager to control the movement of the uvw gizmo with a shape controller. Doing it this way, even if you squash the mesh, your eyes texture won't get affected, and because you are using normal map, your eyes will look more 3d-ish. This is the same way Pixar uses on Cars.
archanex
09-09-2008, 05:57 AM
actually Illusion, I asked about this at siggraph in 2006, and I was told from a Technical Director at pixar that there were no normal maps used on the eyes of the characters in Cars, instead he explained that it was a camera projection technique. However, it was way over my head so I can't really tell you much more than that heh.
boflipy
09-13-2008, 05:37 AM
Hey guys,

Thanks loads for your comments (for some reason I have'nt been able to post back for a couple of days). It does sound like a bit of blind bashing around when it comes to these sort of eyes.
Taking into account the amount of time I have, I think the most effective and appropriate idea would be the projected textures. I would really have liked to have the pupils as an actual object so I could blend shape them but, ah well, I shall just have to have amazing shapes with my brows!

Illusion-shadow (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=108513) - I'm definitely going to look into your idea a bit more though, sounds good. How its better for mesh-squishing especially. At the moment, I'm going to take off the back visor and project the eyes texture on there and just blend shape the outer rim. We'll see how it goes anyway,

Thanks once again
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