Character Animator - Eye Behavior for Cat Puppet not working correctly

[JayDrawsThings]

Hi everyone, 

I'm new to Character Animator. I made a simple rig of my cat Sagan and everything works fine but the left eye. The big problem is at certain (and random head positions) the left eye folds in on itself. The pupils are not tracking either, which is a lessor concern at this moment as I could just use the mouse to move them later. But I feel like I've tried everything and can't get that left eye to work correctly. He blinks just fine. They are attached to the torso, set to weld, tagged correctly, the "Show Rigging Issues" function just says no behaviors are attached to the eyes, but when I tried adding Eye Gaze, it made it worse. BOTH eyes started folding in on each other.  See screen grabs below. Any suggestions would be amazing. 

Thnx

Jay

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from cc desktop">

[JayDrawsThings]

Oh geez, okay, I didn't know that. Thanks for moving it for me. I really appreciate  it. 

Jay

[kglad]

you're welcome.

[TheOriginalGC]

I see in your rigging that the pupil for the puppet's eyes is not set to independent. That is probably causing the "folding" issue that you are seeing. To make the layer independent, just click on the crown column to the left of the layer name to toggle it. 

[JayDrawsThings]

Hi there!

Thanks so much for responding. I didn't think i'd hear from anyone. I actually tried that later that night, after I posted the screen shots. The eye didn't fold when tracking my head/eyes moving but as soon as I wanted to trigger an ear or a tail the moment I clicked (this instance the tail) it would immediately fold. Just the left eye, still. When I clicked away (Like when trying to do a screen shot), it would bounce back to normal looking eye. The 2nd screen shot below, you can see that I moved the tail a little bit. The moment I clicked on the tail, the left eye folds. When I let go, the tail stays in the position I moved it to, but the eye pops back to normal again. So slightly different behavior than before when I had the gold crown on the left eye, but ultimately, still the same issue. 

Again, thanks for your time here. I really appreciate it. 

Jay

  

[TheOriginalGC]

I can't see if anything in the ear layers would be creating problems. Are you using a swap set for the ears? There are two body layers, which might be causing confusion with the program. You might want to re-name it as something like "torso." 

[JayDrawsThings]

Few things:

1. Fixed 2 body layers, now one says torso.  Screen shot his entire rig. 

2. When left eye doesn't have Independence (crown), the eye becomes part of the body when selecting. (See in screen grabs how right eye has yellow bounding around it but left selects entire body now. That is why I had the independence on the left eye. 

3. Ear is not set up as swap set. I just wanted to have a dragable so i could wiggle them a little. 

 With out left eye independence. 

with left eye indenpendence

 Ears are set up like this. No swap set, just welded on, tried hindge and free floating, all did the same thing. 

 

[JayDrawsThings]

I tried to post a little quick 5 sec video of the behavior but I do not have permission to post videos. 

Jay

[TheOriginalGC]

You might want to try making the ears independent and adding a dangle node to the tips to have them move when the head moves.

Both the eye and the pupil layers need to be independent.

[JayDrawsThings]

Oh man, i'm getting closer! For some reason when I click into the left eye, a right eye tag shows up as well. When I deleted it, BOTH eyes folded in on themselves, so it has to be there for some reason. When I click into the right eye there is no dotted yellow line (anchor maybe?) but the left eye has the anchor to the nose and I can't undo it... But now that i followed your instruction ONLY the eye folds and his left check/face doesn't anymore. Lastly, if i make the ears independent, do I need to remove the dragable tag? 

[TheOriginalGC]

You definitely do not want to have the right eye tag in the left eye.  You will need to delete that tag and go back to make sure you have the right eye tag in the right eye. The dotted line is the offset, which simply means that there is some distance from the center of the object. Ideally, you want the center of the eye to be in the center of the object and not on the nose. This is especially important for the pupils as they move relative to the offset. You should be able to use the pointer icon the drag the offset back to center.

For the ears, you can make them draggable, but if they're independent, you have to be careful not to drag them off the puppet. The dangle behavior ONLY works if the object is independent. But if you don't care to have the ears wobbling when the cat moves his head, then dangle is not necessary. You should play with it and see which behavior you prefer.