How to animate mouths when mouth is partially being blocked

[charliet30232134]

Sorry about the title. I wasn't sure how exactly to word it.

Here's the story:

I'm creating a digital puppet. He will be a football player, wearing a helmet. As most of you know helmets have face masks on them which will block part of the mouth. The eyes should be ok since there's a space between the bars in the mask that will allow it to be seen. 

The problem will be with the mouth. I can set up the different mouth shapes but the mouth (inside a helmet) is partially blocked by the bars in the facemask. Basically you'll see the mouth partially but some of it will be hidden behind the bars. Is there to have the mouth on top of the face but WITH something partially over the mouth? Imagine a mouth moving behind a chainlink fence. You would see it but certain parts of it will be blocked.

I'm just not sure how the layers will work here since the bars have to be over the face but also over the mouth. Can I make the facemask itself a level and somehow anchor it to the face? I'm somewhat new at this so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[TheOriginalGC]

If I were doing it, I would make the helmet part of the head, but on a layer that's above everything else. Then you can have the mouth animations as normal behind the image of the helmet facemask. 

[charliet30232134]

I was wondering about doing it that way. My only question is how to make sure that the facemask moves with the face. Is it about naming it a certain way or can the two layers be locked together in some way? Thank you for your valubale input by the way. I'm learning...

[TheOriginalGC]

I'm not sure I understand your issue. Does the face move with the head? If so, making the helmet part of the head should give you the results that you want. Does the face move in ways that the head does not?

[charliet30232134]

I think the issue I'm trying to understand is how layers affect the final output. What I mean is that the (blank) face will be below the mouth layers but that will be below the facemask layer. Yes you're right, the helmet and the facemask will move together. What I'm unsure of is how the face and the facemask layers work together to move together. Are they locked together in some way or is this something to do with anchors. You are right that having the mask about the above which is above the face will work. I'm just unsure of how to make sure the face and the facemask are in tandem. Your solution sounds bang on. I'm just wondering about how they are couple together (since they're on separate layers). Thanks for your time here by the way. Very much appreciated.

[TheOriginalGC · Accepted solution]

If it helps, think of it as a pair of glasses that the character places in front of their eyes. It's just an extra layer and it's placed above the other layers. But as long as that layer is still a subset of the head group, it will be treated as part of the head. You will likely need to mark the layer as independent so that CH doesn't try to distort the helmet (unless that's what you want).

[charliet30232134]

Yeah I get it now. I'm still at level of trying to understand how the program sees and deals with things. That makes total sense. It's basically just an accesory that goes with the head. Your explanation of the grouping is the part I was mixed up on. I needed to understand how the program sees it. This has been a greta help. Thank you so much!