Can we do this in Maya????

[galactor]

It certenly can be done. I've made the same setup.
It cannot be done with custom windows generated with MEL.

You can open my file that is attached to this post as refference. It is usable in Maya 4 > and higher.

:: Galactor ::

[galactor]

If you have seen my example scene, you notticed that the panel with controllers was constrained to a locator. But i experienced that you can just parent the panel to the perspectiv camera !!
This way it is even more easy to set up, but you stiil have to place and rotate the panel to the side of your camera viewport.

:: Galactor ::

[mhovland]

I'm also in the process of writting a set of scripts to create the controls for you and also (possibly) hook up the blend shapes automagically.

If I impliment the auto hook up, it would require that you name your blend shapes a specific name.

I haven't decided on howw everything is going to work yet, so if anyone has any input, I'm all ears :)

send all ideas to:

mhovland@midwaygames.com

[dstripinis]

Mike - instead of forcing a naming convention ( naming conventions generally dont work for public scripts ) you can just use the current selection, find the dependent blendshape node and grab the names of the blendshapes from there.

[mhovland]

Originally posted by dstripinis
Mike - instead of forcing a naming convention ( naming conventions generally dont work for public scripts ) you can just use the current selection, find the dependent blendshape node and grab the names of the blendshapes from there.

I thought about that, but let's say my scripts are looking for 4 blendshapes for the jaw movement. How am I supposed to know which blendshapes are for the jaw, if they aren't named in a predictable manner?

If someone has their shapes named mouth_open, mouth_closed, lower_mouth_left, and lower_mouth_right, how do I determine that those four shapes belong to jaw_open, jaw_closed, jaw_left and jaw_right, at runtime?

I'm open to suggestions.....

[MDuffy]

That doesn't seem like a really good way of controlling a face, or at least not one where you need a wide range of emotion. Too much stuff is linked together there. What if you want to sneer while opening the mouth? What if you want to get a certain brow shape? It seems like that setup would be pretty fast to animate, but you'd be limited in what you could do with the expressions. I guess that's the classic tradeoff between speed/simplicity and depth.

I don't think you could do that interface with a dialog box in Maya, but you could certainly create spline controls that did that, and then you would attach them to your current camera (or have a camera pointed at them). Certainly possible, and not all that difficult to do.


Cheers,
Michael Duffy
mduffy@ionet.net

[dstripinis]

Mike -

Basically you'd need to make a configuration dialog:

Open Jaw : { Drop DOwn Menu of Blendshapes }
Jaw Left : { Drop DOwn Menu of Blendshapes }
etc...

A little extra work, but it allows flexibility and a touch of class. :)

I can almost guarentee if you require a naming convention you'll get angry angry emails from someone how the script doesn't work and you're an idiot cause they named something Jaw_Left instead of jaw_left.

[mhovland]

Yeah that was another of my thoughts, a config menu with all blendshapes.

I guess it makes sense to do it whole hog, right from the start :)

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