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Participant
November 7, 2020
Question

Body follows head movement. TRIED EVERYTHING!

  • November 7, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 265 views

Hello -- I'm making a virtual avatar for myself, of myself. I've used photoshop to draw and create the layers, and followed the video guides for character animator. The lipsync and hair movement works great, and it follows my movement well without any warping. I have a couple problems though:

1. Whenever I tilt my head, the body follows. I only need half of my body, so the model only has the upper body part connected to the neck, connected to the head. But I can't get the body to stay in place while I tilt my head. I would also like to have the neck move a bit with my head, but still with the upper body staying in place. 

2. The pupils aren't moving very much. Sometimes one of them snaps to the side and back in place, but they aren't moving with my eye movements. Both pupils are independent (crown icon) and other pre-made puppets work alright. I wear glasses, so I'm not sure if that's an issue, but I'm in good lighting with no big reflections. 

I have tried adding pins. I removed them for these pictures and video because it was messy and I am not sure if they were added correctly. 

Here is a Dropbox link to some images, the puppet, the PSD file, and a video of the problem. Link.

The video in the dropbox also demonstrates a pre-made character (Rin) and how my settings match hers, yet it works properly on Rin's and not on mine. I am aiming for something like Rin, however I would like the neck to look a little more natural rather than sort of stretching the shoulders like Rin's. 

I would appreciate any help. Right now my puppet is only linework, as I wanted to test out the movement before I colored it in. I also plan on adding more sides to the face so I can do a proper head tilt. 

This topic has been closed for replies.

5 replies

alank99101739
Legend
November 14, 2020

You might want to play with the gravity value or other Physics behavior properties - the hair seems very springy to me. Ooohhhh, it might be because you are using line artwork (not filled). I think things will behavior better when you have filled in the artwork. It is treating the hair as the single outline, not the whole area. Fill the hair and things will start being a bit better there I think.

 

Oh, last step, I put pins along the bottom of the character to lock that part from not moving.

 

alank99101739
Legend
November 14, 2020

Thanks for the link. If you look at Rin, see there is a "5" on the root layer of the puppet? If you click on the layer I think it will show the pins and sticks. You don't have that on your puppet.

 

Also your "Upper Body" layer is nsted inside the "Head" layer, which is not typical. I would have Body and Head as sibilngs. (Not essential in your case.)

 

Also make the root layer independent (Features). It avoids some problems.

 

Did you keep the background layer in there on purpose? It will make the warping go a bit funny (although making Feature independent will fix that problem too). Hidden layers still have impact in CH.

 

I would also generally make the left/right eyes and mouth independent (not essential, but reduces problems). And neck not independent.

 

The Bangs layer I would not make independent. The children (Left Hair etc) are independent. That is good. Don't make Bangs also independent though.

 

Personally I would remove the Fixed pins on your bangs - the problem I think was the Bangs layer was independent. Also move the origin of the hear layers near the top instead - that is the pivot point of the hair.

 

You have independent Left Bangs inside independent Left Bangs. Remove a level of nesting (or remove independence from the top left bang).

 

Here is an example screenshot so far (not finished yet - have not done your original problem - but long posts sometimes fail so going to post this then continue).

 

 

alank99101739
Legend
November 8, 2020

I forgot the eyes!  Another debugging step is to turn camera off and mouse as input on. Do the eyes move well then? If yes, it's lighting as the other post said. If not it's a pupil range /strat pixel problem at a guess

Known Participant
November 8, 2020

Heya,

 

Definitely the glasses might play tricks for your pupils going out of range, try performing without them.

And in order to keep the body of the puppet still, put pins or line and tag it as fixed at the base of the body + not sure where you`re body origin is, go to body layer and see if the origin is not somehow moved up closer to head and just move it down on the lower part of the body. 

 

Hope it helps.

Alex

alank99101739
Legend
November 7, 2020

The link did not work for me sorry - took me to the forums (no download links etc).

 

Pins can be useful, but pins and sticks together can be more useful if placed carefully (err, trial and error until it looks good!). For example, putting pins along the bottom (roughly) and a stick up the spin to mid chest will reduce how much the bottom half of the puppet warps. Sometimes I put sticks up the sides of the body to stop the chest warping. You need to decide what you want to warp and what not to warp. Pins hold things from moving at all, sticks restrict warping. So its a combination of both you need to get right. E.g. do NOT put a stick up the neck if you want it to flex, and if you want the neck to flex more, consider a stick horizontal across the top of the shoulders so the shoulders dont warp (but lower body can still bend a bit)

Participant
November 14, 2020

Sorry about the link, here it is. It should work. Link.