creating eyelashes that move with morph-targeted eyelid animation?

[Gilgamesh]

Just attach them to the mesh and include them in the morph targets. If you want them separate for some reason you could probably use an expression to control their rotation based on the blending of the morph target. But I'm not sure how to do that.

[Iain McFadzen]

You can also leave them separate and give them their own Morpher modifier, create all the necessary targets, then wire the head morph channels to the eyelash morph channels and link 'em to the head. The advantage of this set up is that you can different object properties from the rest of he head, allowing you to turn off shadow casting on only the eyelashes.

I use Max4.2.0 at home and for some reason if I turn shadow-casting off on a mesh then attach it to another mesh Max remembers which faces were non-shadow-casting. I thought this was a clever feature in Max4.2, but it doesn't do this at work where I use Max4.2.6. I assume this must have been a small bug and Discreet "fixed" it (gee thanks Discreet).

[Marcel]

It's possible to use a controller to link a object to a single vertex of another object. I don't know the specifics of it though, but the help files will, well... help!

Marcel

[Iain McFadzen]

Yeah it's the attachment constraint. It has some horrible limitations though, the main one being that the constraint works on face numbers, so you can't constrain to an object below the meshsmooth (even if it's set to viewport iterations only).

[Dave Black]

There is a particular controller for doing things just like that. I have been using it on my characters at work for awhile now, and it seems to be the best way to go.

It's called the "reactor" controller. If you've never used it before, you should consult the documentation, as it's not the most intuitive function.

Basically you set the move transform for the eyelashes to have a reactor controller, and make it be affected by a particular morph target. When you ramp up the morph, it will move with the percentage of the morph, and works quite well.

It has a few limitaions, especially if you are using morpher in conjunction with facial bones, or have more complex morph targets. Might serve your needs just fine though. I like using it because it's seamless, and makes your co-workers scratch thier heads. The tecnique really shines when you are using it to move the teeth around with the mouth open/close states.

Hope this helps

[ryankittleson]

Really great tips here.

[pascal_blanche]

or even simplier, create morph targets to your eyelashes that follow the eyes moves you need ( eyes closed for instance) and then right click on the eyelashes /wireparameters/transform/morph to the transform/morph of the head. Of course don't forget to link them to the head so they can follow it..
this technic allow you to be really precise with the shape of the eyelashes you want.

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