Character distorted in record mode

[evaf45139165]

Hi Guys,

I wanted to ask about character distortion.

I have a character from Adobe Illustrator. If I managed to to get it working nicely with dangling and triggers and such but at one point I mess things up "somehow" and stuff starts to distort.

If I have head connected to the body, I switch to record mode and character gets bloated. Plus if I turn on "Head scale strength" in Face properties, or I start changing transform values, things get distorted even more.

If I make the head independent, the first problem disappears, everything looks fine at first, but the second one stays. Head scale strength makes the head distort in all sort of crazy way.

What could be the source of these distortions? 

Thanks so much for any info.

[alank99101739]

A useful debugging tip is to turn on the yellow mesh (icon at bottom of scene window). As you move the head, are parts of the mesh not moving? There might be a problem in that part of the mesh causing the distortions.

A major purpose of independence is to limit the scope of such distortions, which is why making the head independent makes a big difference.

Have you tried the "reset" button for the camera? It sets the stable point for the camera (everything is relative to when you click "reset pose"). There are also properties like head position strength etc if you dig into the Face behavior. Sometimes they solve problems, but sometimes they just half hide the real problem. I would check the mesh first - does the yellow outline track the body outline nicely? Are their points in the mesh that are not moving? Feel free to share more screenshots with the mesh on!

[evaf45139165]

Thanks so much.

I know about the mesh and I tried before, the problem is an I frankly have no idea what it actually is 🙂 I played around the contour and auto meshing, but I need to properly google what good is that for.

I started again and really trying to keep the layers clean as per Ok Samurai videos. 

Is there by any chance like an online manual with a description of each setting? Couldn't
( find it out by generally poking around. The "strengths" make sense kinda when I fiddle around with them but I am eager to know what does it do actually.

(Chin is bigger cause there is a hidden beard. Just like in all of us.)

[alank99101739]

Looking at the screenshot, the mesh follows the outline of the puppet nicely (good!). So it is not a rectangle. Yes, hidden layers affect the mesh structure as it has to make them visible sometimes, so the mesh includes them. Hence the bottles in the hands and the beard. But that all still looks good. 

So the next thing I would do is in the scene window, have the mesh on and move your head around. Are there points you can see are "stuck" (not moving) on the mesh. E.g. is the nose a problem? Or eyes? Maybe the mouth? It can help isolate the source of the problem (sometimes). I also sometimes start deleting part of the puppet around that area, see if it fixes it, then click "Undo".

[alank99101739]

What the little yellow triangles are is "the mesh". To stretch the image (e.g. to bend an arm or lean over etc) it actually stretches lots of little triangles with part of the image on each triangle. You will notice there are often more triangles near joints, to make the stretching look better. A common problem is some parts of the mesh do not move and other parts do move - e.g. the eyes do not move but the rest of the head does. You can see this with the mesh as individual points don't move, or sections of the mesh (those triangles) don't move. That can give a hint where the problem is.

For example, if you end up with a rectangle for a mesh (does not follow the outline of your puppet) then CH has failed to work out the artwork for a mesh - it needs the mesh to be continuous (all Connected). If there is a gap, it drops back to a big rectangle. Stretching the rectangle generally does not look as natural as stretching an arm individually. So the mesh is important to get right.

[evaf45139165]

You are indeed most wise. Thanks a lot.

I also found your advice in the following problem which helped a lot so I am just dropping it here if somebody ever stumbles upon it:

Puppet distortion 

You made the world of community help proud today alank99101739  !!!