animate Elmer Fudd's mouth to talk and sing?

[3dWannabe]

I'm buying a character that needs facial animation.

I found great tutorial on creating facial morphs here:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=3&pid=363

I understand how to create the basic anger, happy, sad looks with morphs, but ... I'm a bit confused when it comes to the mouth.

The tutorial doesn't really cover this. When he needed to move the teeth, he jumped from Mudbox to Maya (he also moved the eyebrows in Maya for some reason which is not clear to me).

Do I put a joint in the head to open the mouth?

Someone suggested "teeth and tongue would be controlled using a FFD cage".

Do I try to do it all with morphs, or combine morphs with a Jaw Joint?

How do I animate the tongue? Just with morphs?

I'm completely clueless, and probably making it more complex than it should be?

BTW - when I get the morphs done, TAFA seems the most interesting at the moment to turn the morphs into speech or singing. http://ta-animation.com/FA/ , but this may change.

But ... TAFA uses only morphs, so if I go with a joint to move the mouth ... Ahhhhh! I'm lost again.

Thanks!

[RebelHill]

it very much depends on which software you're working in.

With maya, creating whoe expressions, and phonemes as belndshapes works quite well, as does using bone controls mixed with blendshapes.

The reason this works so well is the way that maya handles such deformations. The "mix" betwen blendshapes can be controlled in different ways, shapes can be additive, multiplied, divided, tangental, etc, etc. Also the way that shapes and bone deforms overlap can be controlled.

If you're working in LW however... its a VERY different story.

First, mixing morfs and bones can only be done one of 2 ways, morfs first, bones second, or vice versa... and that's it, you've no control over the weighting of the interraction, or anything else.

Secondly, when mixing morf shapes together, the only option you have is additive (unless you start digging into setting up your whole morf control system using teh node editor, in which case you're back to an evaluation order issue when mixing them with bones).

The problem works like this...

Imagine you have an "Aayy" phoneme (like "partay!"). now you also have a smile expression morf. What happens when you want a smiling ayy... you have to add the 2 morfs together, and guess what, chances are they wont mix properly, and you'll get buckled deformations going on.

The other thing, which is basically the same is what heppens when going from one phoneme to the next... at some point in the crossover you'll have both morfs being added together each at less than 100%... again, there's no way to really control this interraction, so if the 2 dont mix properly, you're SOL.

This is why Ive ALWAYS recommended against using the expression/phoneme method of facial animation in LW... cos unless you've got a very basic character, with very basic, broad shapes, it just plain won't work, and you get very little control over how your face deforms except when you have one single morf at 100%.

So what I recommend is a method of using combination shapes.

Combination shapes entails breaking your face (figuratively speaking) into parts, and directions that operate independently of each other.

For instance a mouth up, mouth down, mouth wide, mouth narrow, jaw open, jaw closed morfs.

In taht instance a smile would be made from mouth up+mouth wide+jaw open.

In this way you can get far more control over how your face will actually shape, and also how those shapes will hold up when combined together.

it also allows for you to tie the shapes to controllers that give you a far more intuitive interface than a bunch of sliders, as well as there being far fewer controls to have to work with. These controls also allow you to get arc motion into your face, etc, etc... something very painful to have to do my just mixing absolute expressions.

My RHR series covers combination shapes quite in depth, mainly the setup of teh controllers... wheras my RHiggit tools have prebuilt setups for these. Lite contains a basic such face setup, and pro a more advanced one.

If you want more of an overview of combination shapes, download the RHiggit lite guide, the face setup video explains and shows the ideas behind making those shapes, and how they are designed to interract together quite clearly.

[3dWannabe]

..... My characters used ONLY morphs.

That's great to know!

I guess my only concern then is how to create all the morph movements.

I'd hoped to use 3D Coat, but the tools in the Sculpt room are very limited compared to voxels, so I'm considering using Mudbox. I understand how to create the basic morphs in Mudbox as the tutorial is very clear.

However, the Mudbox tutorial video shows the teeth and eyebrows moved in Maya, and doesn't really address moving the jaw. So, I've got to figure that out (which tool is best for which kinds of morphs?)

I'm going to use Maya anyway for some weight painting (as LW's FBX totally messes things up at the moment), so if I have to learn a few more things in Maya, so be it.

But, I'd prefer to use LW instead of Maya as I'm more familiar with it, unless there is an advantage.

So, any clues on the best way to generate those morphs for the open/closed mouth, tongue, etc.

Thanks!

[3dWannabe]

....
So what I recommend is a method of using combination shapes.

Combination shapes entails breaking your face (figuratively speaking) into parts, and directions that operate independently of each other.

For instance a mouth up, mouth down, mouth wide, mouth narrow, jaw open, jaw closed morfs.

In taht instance a smile would be made from mouth up+mouth wide+jaw open.

In this way you can get far more control over how your face will actually shape, and also how those shapes will hold up when combined together.

it also allows for you to tie the shapes to controllers that give you a far more intuitive interface than a bunch of sliders, as well as there being far fewer controls to have to work with. These controls also allow you to get arc motion into your face, etc, etc... something very painful to have to do my just mixing absolute expressions.

My RHR series covers combination shapes quite in depth, mainly the setup of teh controllers... wheras my RHiggit tools have prebuilt setups for these. Lite contains a basic such face setup, and pro a more advanced one.

If you want more of an overview of combination shapes, download the RHiggit lite guide, the face setup video explains and shows the ideas behind making those shapes, and how they are designed to interract together quite clearly.

What you are saying makes a lot of sense.

The Mudbox/Maya facial animation tutorial created separate shapes, left corner mouth up, etc.

I believe the TAFA software can mix morphs together, as I remember several parts of the face being animated together in one of the tutorials, where they were combining several morphs.

Do you think the TAFA software would be the way to go, or have you been animating using your own facial rigs and controllers - and find that is an advantage for you?

Of course, besides creating the simpler morphs (left corner mouth down), I've got to figure out how to create morphs that involve the mouth opening, tongue movements, etc. (Mudbox was great for simple ones, but the tutorial used Maya for the teeth and eyebrows) - so I'm still up in the air as to the best tools to use for creating those?

Or, if there is a major advantage to learning Maya for using the morphs to create the actual animations (expressions, and phonemes as blendshapes), where I'd ??? bring in an mdd file into LW with the Maya animations ??? (I'm clueless again in on this subject).

Ahhh! The rabbit hole keeps getting deeper!

[RebelHill]

Well, maya is excellent for the way it allows you to get stuck in to designing the ways that shapes can be mixed together, and mixed with bones... just look up face rigs in maya on youtube, some great stuff... but be prepared for a looooooooooooong learning curve (or cut it down and buy the face machine).

You can owever pretty much forget doing the face anim in maya, and the body anim in LW, then MDDing the 2 together. It works if you have a separate head object... face animate that in maya, parent the object to your LW head bone/control, and load the mdd jsut onto the head, otherwise, its not gonna work, and you'll need to do all animtion in one or the other.

As for TAFA... no, it cant mix morfs any differently to how LW does it. All tafa basically is is a premade joystick setup that you can drop your own morfs into, so move the joystick left u get this morf, move it right you get a different one. its essentially no different to waht joytrol was, with the exception that it has its own ogl for loading your mesh to give faster performance. Issues when mixing shapes however that are full expressions and phonemes will still exist though... tafa will not get you around those issues as they are inherent to the way LW works.

Now that performance issues was a problem back in the days tafa first came along some years ago... its gone now... My own face rigs run WAAAY quicker than realtime, like 60-80 fps (thats the face alone ofc, not face with a body).

As for me, ofc, I alwasy use my own face rigs... it allows me to design the exact behaviour that I want out of the controls, and also to design a morf group and ctronller group that fit together perfectly. Check the oddfather face rig in my rigging reel for instance.

As for opening the mouth, with the teeth... just use morfs... its easy as that. Though for the tongue, while you can use morfs, I prefer using bones... the tongue just follows the jaw in the morfs, and bones give teh actual control of the tongue.

Really, download and watch the face video in the RHiggit lite setup guide... its explains it all very clearly.

[3dWannabe]

Well, maya is excellent for the way it allows you to get stuck in to designing the ways that shapes can be mixed together, and mixed with bones... just look up face rigs in maya on youtube, some great stuff... but be prepared for a looooooooooooong learning curve (or cut it down and buy the face machine).

You can owever pretty much forget doing the face anim in maya, and the body anim in LW, then MDDing the 2 together. It works if you have a separate head object... face animate that in maya, parent the object to your LW head bone/control, and load the mdd jsut onto the head, otherwise, its not gonna work, and you'll need to do all animtion in one or the other.

As for TAFA... no, it cant mix morfs any differently to how LW does it. All tafa basically is is a premade joystick setup that you can drop your own morfs into, so move the joystick left u get this morf, move it right you get a different one. its essentially no different to waht joytrol was, with the exception that it has its own ogl for loading your mesh to give faster performance. Issues when mixing shapes however that are full expressions and phonemes will still exist though... tafa will not get you around those issues as they are inherent to the way LW works.

Now that performance issues was a problem back in the days tafa first came along some years ago... its gone now... My own face rigs run WAAAY quicker than realtime, like 60-80 fps (thats the face alone ofc, not face with a body).

As for me, ofc, I alwasy use my own face rigs... it allows me to design the exact behaviour that I want out of the controls, and also to design a morf group and ctronller group that fit together perfectly. Check the oddfather face rig in my rigging reel for instance.

As for opening the mouth, with the teeth... just use morfs... its easy as that. Though for the tongue, while you can use morfs, I prefer using bones... the tongue just follows the jaw in the morfs, and bones give teh actual control of the tongue.

Really, download and watch the face video in the RHiggit lite setup guide... its explains it all very clearly.

I watched your face video for RHiggit lite, and it was excellent!

1. What's changing for RHiggit Pro?

2. Do you have a way to 'scrub' the audio track like TAFA (I've never used audio inside LW before).

3. Any issue with using a lot more morphs than you require? Will that conflict with using your facial animation rig? (As I haven't done this before, I have no idea if more morphs are even necessary).

4. Know of any issues with bringing morphs in from Mudbox?

Thanks!

[3dWannabe]

I have one other general question about the entire character (head, body, etc).

The artist is asking if I wanted the UVs in one UV set, or to separate them?

I'm not sure of the advantages of the two choices?

Thanks!

[Greenlaw]

Bones or Morph? At times we will use both in a single character. For example, we use face morphs to get specific details like lip and tongue shapes but in the same rig we may also use a bone to move the jaw up and down and swing it side-to-side. There are other parts of the face where we might do that, depending on the character. The combo of using both methods helps us keep the faces from looking too 'morphy', and we enjoy the benefit of both approaches (precise shapes + direct animation.)

As for one UV or multiple, there's no right or wrong answer. It really depends on how you want to use your UV space. If there are parts of the character that need to be extra high res, like the face, you will probably want to give it its own uv map.

Some tips: it's a good idea not to overlap your UV shells, especially if the data needs to go into another application. At that point, you're usually better off breaking things into separate maps.

Also, be aware that if you export an .obj with one or more UV maps for another program, you need to 'activate' the maps by applying them in different channels. Otherwise, the .obj exporter will ignore the UV maps.

G.

[3dWannabe]

Also, be aware that if you export an .obj with one or more UV maps for another program, you need to 'activate' the maps by applying them in different channels. Otherwise, the .obj exporter will ignore the UV maps.

G.

Thanks for the advice on bones/morphs/UVs!

I'm a bit unclear about "'activate' the maps by applying them in different channels."

Am I missing something basic?

Thanks!

[RebelHill]

right o, well...

fisrt off morfs from mudbox, cant really say. The way that I go around prepping morfs in LW uses addition and subtraction of morfs so as the create shapes that mix properly... so as long as there are similar tools in MB, then I dont see why not.

As for whats what in RHiggit. Well the faces in RHiggit arent really the headline part, not by a long shot, they're just thrown into the package so as folks have at least SOME solution for setting up character faces. The obvious problem is the joystick rigs supplied can only use the morf set its been built for. You can use more morfs, but you'll either have to setup more controllers yourself, or fall back on sliders.

But really, tis not about comparing it against TAFA... that does a LOT more for sure. But at the end of the day, TAFA is still just a joystick system, and as such, you can use the exact same methodology for how to build your morfs when using tafa... the whole thing about the combination shape approach vs the phoneme/viseme approach is that due to LWs way of applying morfs, comination shapes work better... but beyond that, you can use whatever joystick tool you like... rhiggit, tafa, joytrol, or build your own... cos really its the MORFS that are the rig... not the controller.