Tilt head but not body

[Fearless Mind]

So I want my characters head to be able to to tilt at the neck without it tilting the entire body.
But i still want my body to move with the head so that the head dosent become detacthed, i just dont want it to tilt.

And I've noticed that the Maddy puppet from Athena Studios does this perfectly, but after spending an hour looking at how she is set up i still cant figure out what they did to make this possible.

Help?

[Fearless Mind]

I uploaded the .puppet file if anyone want to take a look.
Jorleif.puppet - Google Drive

[KJerryK]

Here's one way that I've found that works for this.

In the rigging panel, select the head, and add a transform behavior. Then move the head tag to where you want the pivot point to be.

Now, in the recording panel you can rotate the head using its own transform behavior. To keep the body from moving too, you can place a couple of fixed points on the body in the rigging panel. I put them at the shoulders.

[Fearless Mind]

Thank you for the response, and this would certainly work if I wanted more manual control over the puppet.
But it does not solve the current problem for me, I want to be able to tilt the head, while still having the body move with the head just not tilt/rotate, if that makes sense.

I'll definatly keep it in mind for future puppets though

[oksamurai]

Try upping Face > Head Tilt in the right properties. 75% is the default, more should get the look you're going for.

[Fearless Mind]

I've tried that but it just makes the tilt of the head and body stronger.

It's not easy to describe my problem, but i want my head to tilt alot whitout the body rotating alot.Just like with the Maddy Puppet.

As you can see, when Maddy tilts her head the upper torso and neck stay in aproximatly the same place which also leads to the hands not moving much.
But while my puppet tilts his head the neck and uper torso follows along leading to the hands to move alot to.

I want him to be able to cock his head without leaning the entire body over.

[oksamurai · Accepted solution]

I was able to get it pretty good by upping head tilt to 200% and changing the arms to a) connect with a hinge attach style instead of weld, and b) dragger set to hold in place instead of return to rest.

[karenb27092164]

i am also having this issue. the entire body turns with the head rather being able to move the head side to side.

what does

changing the arms to a) connect with a hinge attach style instead of weld, and b) dragger set to hold in place instead of return to rest.

mean?

[Fearless Mind]

Thank you I'm guessing it's the hinge attach that made it work, don't know why I hadn't tried that

[alank99101739]

Character Animator supports the concept of “independent” layers. They have a little “crown” icon next to them. Sometimes the arm is attached as an independent layer to the body. The arm is joined at the shoulder (it has to overlap a bit to attach to the body). At where the joint is made, you have to specify the joint type. If you use “weld”, then if the body rotates the arm will rotate as well. If you use “hinge” it does not rotate - it will move with the body, but if the body leans over the arm will not rotate with it. I did a little demo of hinge versus weld here: Project Wookie - YouTube  episode 12. The ballon starts using weld (the normal default) then moves on to hinge (works better for the balloon).

There are other approaches however. You can use sticks for example to minimize the warping of the body. Put one across the shoulders, then one down each side of the puppet. The body won’t flex as much then. Episode 2 from the above series talks about sticks in general and warping.

But there is a question for your artwork are you trying to get the head to hinge (be independent), or be attached to the body so it does not hinge. In the former you use an independent layer for the head, in the latter you don’t. They just look different (there is no right and wrong). Episode 25 makes the arms independent for example.

There are also official Adobe tutorials listed on the forums near the top of pages. These are higher quality than my little videos. (They get straight to the point faster.) I showed the full sequence of what I did, not skipping anything. I would try one, and if not useful, try another etc. But watching a few videos etc on the basics can help you get the basic grasp of concepts. Things become much clearer then.

[HouHouHou]

I'd like to add a great solution to this found by the geniuses at Digital Puppets. Only attempt this if you're at the beginning of rigging or okay with CH deleting your existing rigging. It's basically...

1) Place your Head contents inside another group, named Frontal or Standing or whatever (I've used a few names to try it out)

2) Tag this parent group and your Head group as Heads and tag Head w/ Face behavior and as independent.

In Rec Mode you will have your regular Face, that now basically controls the body, and Face controls for your Head, separately! Yes, your puppet's head will be flying off the body because it's independent--but you can stop this by adjusting the Head Position Strengths for the 2 Face controls (this is not mentioned in the video below). Mine set at 0% and 15% matched the head and body perfectly. Now, if there's a scene where you want the head or body to tilt or scale independently, just toggle off the head or body's Face behavior or you can simply set them to different strengths.

If, afterall, you're unsatisfied, I believe you can just remove the appropriate tags and turn off the head's independence.

Adding this extra folder/group on top also helps the Walk behavior steer clear of any confusion with Head & Body Turners you may have nested in unusual places, as I have--that's how I happened across all this. I'm hoping this structure doesn't lead to any other issues down the road--I've seen enough of that this week--but I can say these changes didn't interfere with Walk or Body Tracking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NMz9Ra-Mbk

[HouHouHou]

And this okaysamurai video is the best explanation of all, starting at 12:30. Of course it's the best, because Dave is the best explainer on all of YouTube. I saw this months ago but blanked on it, because it was over my head at the time...