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R
renatus1234565
Inspiring
February 11, 2021
Question

Jaw movement NEVER ever works for me, please help!!

  • February 11, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 1542 views

So I'll post samples here but it's a general problem for me. the Jaw movement feature just never works for me period. I have relatively complex puppets otherwise and I mostly understand the layer structure needs so far. I'm using the 'new' thing where the head is in a "frontal" group to get better head rotation now. Then there are 5 heads in there for turning (on this puppet). no matter what I do, on any of my puppets the basic jaw movement never responds right. 
  In this case the puppets' middle three heads has a "back hair" behind the head which also sometimes warps depending on independence. I've tried every conbination of independence or non-independence and it makes no difference. left profile head somehow accidentally almost moves correctly but even if I duplicate the structure exactly on the right profile head it doesn't work. The jaw moves but it acts as if there is some kind of pin in the chin so it moves but the lower chin doesnt go down, it's warping around something. or the layer behind the head, even if independent moves with the jaw. I have a fixed bar on the upper jaw and a "jaw" bar beneath the mouth on each head. It's never clear how large these bars should be but I've tried a million sizes. All I want is a little of the lower jaw to move just a little with the talking, that's it. no matter what I try on any puppet it never works; always warps something else or warps the mouth itself or doesn't work at all. I understand how the fixed and jaw bar things work. Sometimes I rig one head with a jaw and it affects the head next to it! wtf!  I'm so at the end of my rope, I've made probably 50 nice puppets now and it's almost never worked right. anyone have any tips for how the jaw feature works in detail? Daves' tutorials alwasy breeze past it like it's so simple, you just set a fixed and a jaw bar and it works, but it's more than that. Any help will be super, super appreciated. Thank you!

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2 replies

k_oshiro
Community Expert
k_oshiroCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 15, 2021

Thank you for explaining in detail.
I use translation software, so I may not understand it correctly.

The part you are pointing out.
Is it the jaw movement around the 8 second mark in your video?
Yes, if you look closely, you can see that the jaw line is not clean. When the puppet moves its jaw line, it becomes uneven.

In the Photoshop file, is this part of the jaw line clean?
Or is this a separate part?

k_oshiro(AdobeCommunityExpert)
R
renatus1234565Author
Inspiring
February 16, 2021

I figured it out, but thank you anyway. 
   I was saying that EVERY head except the one facing to the right has a jaw that's not working. None of them work, ONLY the one facing fully to the right works. 
   The problem was that if you use the neck rotation trick where you have a second "face" group then in order for the jaw movement to work properly you have to make each "face background" layer independent. Otherwise it tries to warp around some jaw for the entire group or something.

This may also be specific to using multiple heads, and the neck rotation trick and using the built-in jaw behavior 
Anyway, it works now. Thank you for trying!

    k_oshiro
    Community Expert
    k_oshiroCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 15, 2021

    I'm not good at English.
    So I may not have answered your question correctly.

    I watched the mp4 video you attached.
    The jaw appears to move normally in any position.
    What's wrong?
    I want more information.
    Thank you.

    k_oshiro(AdobeCommunityExpert)
    R
    renatus1234565Author
    Inspiring
    February 15, 2021

    Thanks for looking at it. 

        It may look subtle with a quick look but it's not working like it should.   the farthest right view (Right profile) is the one that works right. you can see the entire jaw moves up and down with speech and looks good, but all the other views do move but they don't move correctly. they don't move down like a "jaw" should straight up and down; they either expand outward from the sides or around some invisible "pinned" point. So most of the jaws are not even moving down at all even though they seem to "wiggle" a little becuase they are trying to.   I asked Dave Werner about it on one of his youtube videos and he suspects that the jaw movement might not be compatible with that trick for making the neck rotate. That could be it, I'm still not sure. that trick has you make a second "frontal" group above the main head group so I think the jaw movement is not applying normally to all the heads, because it's just seeing the higher up "frontal" group as the main head, even though I have the secondary head tagged as a "face" properly. It's very confusing to talk about, sorry. Anyway I'm trying out another puppet now without the neck trick to see if that's it and then I'll know. 
           If that IS the problem then that means you can't do the neck rotation trick AND have jaw movement on multiple heads at the same time, you'd have to choose one or the other. 
      see 12:29 in this video of his about the head rotation, that's what I mean about neck rotation trick, it's a great trick to get better movement I hope they can make in permanent and simpler in another update:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05NNzb0lzo&t=518s  

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