How to setup a cartoon oval eye for animation

#1

How to setup a cartoon oval eye for animation :
Right-Click Here and Save to view

#2

Awesome, awesome to the Max :slight_smile:

Now, that was a pretty neat trick…

#3

Thanx…when Jonny showed me the setup I about fell on the floor with how simple it was to setup.

#4

hehe, yeah, ain’t that right :slight_smile:

…not related to the video above, but the below has to do with eyesetup, so here I go…

There is one other tricky thing as far as cartoon eyes goes,…
for extreem expressions in can be quite hard to (scratch that) impossible to make a cartoonish look as the eyelids cross ech other, which leads to stretched geometry.

Example expression,

Haven’t actually made the solution yet, but the trick would be to animate the eyes seperatly,
then render the eyes as a displacement map, for then top paste it onto the character.

" Doing this in realtime isn’t possible just yet, but if one can use somethign like a CCTV output in realtiem to drive a displacement map inside LW it would work. but that’s for the future. " <—Edit: scratch that, CCTV is not realtime, the idea still applies though, usig a realtime blackwhite render output followed by an input. Hmm, maybe nodes can do it.

This method should work good for e.g. old Mickey Mouse animations remade in 3D
(Mickey’s Twice Upon A Christmas has methods that works, but the eyes look different, and often use old stop motion techniques)

Umf, long mail again…

#5

…hi Proton
…
…watchin your vid (thanks a bunch by the way) i have managed to complete the transformation from sphere to oval.
…
…how do i get the now oval eye back into modeler. sorry if this is a really easy something to do.
…
…or is it that i can only place the new “oval” eyes when in layout?..
…thanks for any help, again sorry if i missed somethin obvious.
…
…

#6

You keep them in Layout. But if you wanted it back in modeler you could use Save Trans Object (Transformed Object)

#7

…
…hi thanks for the reply. it WORKS!..
…
…these videos are GREAT!!! help. thanks for the continued posts…
…
…

#8

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Proton!!! I’ve had a character with this same problem and couldn’t find a way to solve it. Thanks so much for making this video. Now I can fisih him!!

#9

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Proton!!! I’ve had a character with this same problem and couldn’t find a way to solve it. Thanks so much for making this video. Now I can finish him!!

#10

bump, just saw this, mighty cool too,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2aA__p7xV4&feature=user

edit:
partly found a solution to my post #4 above,
simply by making and adding displacement maps that are driven by cycler and tied to the eyelid morphs.
(or alternatively, cycler linked to the rotation of bones, if your eyelid close function doesn’t use morphs)

(another alternative might be DPont’s Boolean plugin)

#11

thanks for the link, interesting video. I can always use more rigging techniques.

#12

Hi Proton,

Thanks a lot for this video. I was making my eyes to complex again. You rock!

Cheers.

#13

I have watched the vid too and I must say that You were amazing man. Unfortunately; It was not for Maya. And I am not sure If we can apply this technique to our rigs in Maya or not.

I know that the crucual thing is always the idea. Softwares are just tools that we are using.

But in the video, you did something with bones. You did not skin it or bind it. That is Why my mind is a bit confused.

Anyway, I am gonno give it a try in MAYA .

Once and for all, I have a question about rigging oval eyes.

How about the lids? How can we maintain the spherecal movements in oval shapes. ( the eye lids of the frog in the example )

For nonlinear movements, I have always tried to use joints in order to move my lids in the appropriate arcs.

How can we solve this problem? You do not think that blendshapes or morph targets are enough usefull for this kind of shape changes, do you?

If you have something, please share it with me…

Best Regards;

Ozioz

#14

you can apply this technique in maya, it should be the same method.

for morphing lids in maya you use two blend shapes (morphs) and combine them.
if you ask in the maya forum they can explain further.

there has also been some plugins for doing this in lightwave, search for non-linear morph in this forum.

:slight_smile:

#15

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