So, I spent a few days figuring out how to get maya windows and panels and layouts and buttons to actually do what I wanted. It was a battle, but in the end they are simpler than I thought. When you are building a window, you are parenting objects inside of it and inside of each other. Once that clicked I was able to set up a hierarchy that worked.
Note about GUI's. Some animators like them, some don't. The Cenk Rig gui is so attractive and nice looking I decided to make GUI's for our characters, and was surprised to find that one of our animators wasn't happy about it (which was unfortunate, cuz I had already spent 3 days making them). So, pro's and con's of GUI's.
Pros:
GUI's are pretty straightforward to use and very organized. Its hard to lose a control, and they are out of the way.
The Rigger is in complete control of everything that is happening in the GUI. It is super easy to lock things down and make sure every control is making beautiful shapes.
Cons:
The animator is not in complete control of everything. :) A GUI can put limits on the rig that the animator fights against.
Harder to make one control do lots of things, might lead to more controls if you aren't careful.
There are definitely more, but thats all I got for now. In a perfect world, an animator would be given a rig that is unlimited, looks beautiful in all poses, and is super easy to control. On this film, we decided to go with GUI's cuz they look cool mainly :D Would I do them again? Probably, but simpler. I tried to take every possible micro control and hook it up in the GUI, and I don't think our animators are ever going to use em. Possibly have both? Meh. Take a poll, see what your animators like.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
More Facial Firing Order
K, once you have all of your micro's and macros hooked up, whats next? Hooking up all of your squashes, sticky lips, and secondary controls. This can get pretty complicated, what with trying to keep the teeth and eyes in the face, avoiding double transforms, etc. Here are my thoughts.
Clusters probably fire first. If you try and do a eye squash lattice before your eyelid has moved you are gonna get some funky stuff.
Secondarys come second. They are basically a small rig that, serving a similar purpose to your main facial rig. You want it firing before all of your crazy squashes as well. Probably.
Sticky lips come next.
Eyesquashes come next. These guys are interesting. I used a lattice for them, but that means you have to blendshape them out, cuz you cant paint lattice weights (thanks maya). Now, your eye squash lattice has to have eyelid movement coming into it or it will break, but you dont want double transformations. So, blendshape only your eyelid movements into your eyesquash. And blendshape only everything else into your final squash. When your eyesquash comes into the final they will add together to make 1.
Or as I just discovered, you can just make a cluster for your eyescales. Doh.
In theory. Like everything else I have said on this blog, this may or may not work. :)
Clusters probably fire first. If you try and do a eye squash lattice before your eyelid has moved you are gonna get some funky stuff.
Secondarys come second. They are basically a small rig that, serving a similar purpose to your main facial rig. You want it firing before all of your crazy squashes as well. Probably.
Sticky lips come next.
Eyesquashes come next. These guys are interesting. I used a lattice for them, but that means you have to blendshape them out, cuz you cant paint lattice weights (thanks maya). Now, your eye squash lattice has to have eyelid movement coming into it or it will break, but you dont want double transformations. So, blendshape only your eyelid movements into your eyesquash. And blendshape only everything else into your final squash. When your eyesquash comes into the final they will add together to make 1.
Or as I just discovered, you can just make a cluster for your eyescales. Doh.
In theory. Like everything else I have said on this blog, this may or may not work. :)
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Topology tips
These are some things we learned through experience.
Make sure you have enough edge loops on the underside of the arm.
Make sure you have enough edgeloops at the elbows, knees, and fingers.
Make sure that your edgeloops follow the nasolabial fold down to just outside the corner of the mouth.
Your life will be much better if you keep these things in mind! :)
Make sure you have enough edge loops on the underside of the arm.
Make sure you have enough edgeloops at the elbows, knees, and fingers.
Make sure that your edgeloops follow the nasolabial fold down to just outside the corner of the mouth.
Your life will be much better if you keep these things in mind! :)
Monday, October 19, 2015
Vertex Order
K, so your vertex order is extremely important when it comes to blendshapes(and a lot of other things, but blendshapes are probably what we are gonna use the most.)
There are lots of things that will change your vertex order. Seperating your mesh, deleting faces, adding edgeloops, etc. If you do any of those things your blendshapes wont work. Which can cause problems.
For example. I needed to add edgeloops to the fingers, there weren't enough to keep the volume in the knuckles. Unfortunately, my facial rigs mesh includes the entire upper body. How can I add those edgeloops while still keeping a clean mesh?
First, I corrected my mistake from earlier and copied all of my facial rig clusters over to a new mesh that was only the face and neck. This new face mesh had a different vertex order though, so I cant just create a blendshape from that to my new face and body mesh. So, I make a duplicate of my new face mesh. This duplicate will accept blendshapes from the old mesh, but it doesn't have a body attached to it. Not very useful.
So I duplicate my old face with body, and chop off the head. Then I add all of the edgeloops I want to the fingers. Then I do something very sneaky.
I combine the two pieces of geometry. Select the face first, then the body, and combine. Maya will keep the vertex order of the first piece you selected, in this case the face. So now my face has a body, but still has the same vertex order as the new face mesh. Blendshapes will work.
All that is left to do is delete the history on the new mesh, create the blendshape, and viola.
There are lots of things that will change your vertex order. Seperating your mesh, deleting faces, adding edgeloops, etc. If you do any of those things your blendshapes wont work. Which can cause problems.
For example. I needed to add edgeloops to the fingers, there weren't enough to keep the volume in the knuckles. Unfortunately, my facial rigs mesh includes the entire upper body. How can I add those edgeloops while still keeping a clean mesh?
First, I corrected my mistake from earlier and copied all of my facial rig clusters over to a new mesh that was only the face and neck. This new face mesh had a different vertex order though, so I cant just create a blendshape from that to my new face and body mesh. So, I make a duplicate of my new face mesh. This duplicate will accept blendshapes from the old mesh, but it doesn't have a body attached to it. Not very useful.
So I duplicate my old face with body, and chop off the head. Then I add all of the edgeloops I want to the fingers. Then I do something very sneaky.
I combine the two pieces of geometry. Select the face first, then the body, and combine. Maya will keep the vertex order of the first piece you selected, in this case the face. So now my face has a body, but still has the same vertex order as the new face mesh. Blendshapes will work.
All that is left to do is delete the history on the new mesh, create the blendshape, and viola.
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