Creating and switching different character's sides

[mrfangali]

Hi guys!

I'm sorry in advance for my "frenglish" mistakes!

I'm very new to ASP, I just created my first cartoon, but for now, my main character is only facing camera. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 6mf6_cTX9g -> no subtitles yet, if you're still curious)

I have noticed that, as in many softwares, there are different ways to do the same things.
So I would need some advises or links to tutorials in order to do different sides to my character and switch them properly in animation. Are all the faces systematically in different bone-layers? can I keep one part of one side and integrate it in another side, without having to copy it? etc..

Thanks in advance!

François

[Thrashador]

Hey François,
I had no idea what the heck was going on in your video, as far as dialogue, but it was well animated... especially the dancing part.

As for alternate views of your character, it's up to you to make them by hand. You can save them as separate .anme files, though I like to keep them in all in a single switch layer in the same .anme file. Since mine are so complex, I usually only load one view out of that file at a time when they're in a scene (they each have 8 different angles).

As for switching from one view to another inside an animation, you can use a change in visibility for two different layers or instances of a character.

For smooth head turns or body turns, you could try using smart bones or blend morphs. For a stick figure, it's actually really easy, because you can just interpolate the facial features and body parts.

Hope that helps!

Thrashador

[mrfangali]

Thanks for compliment and advise. (i'll include english subtitles after a few episodes)

Ok, great! I didn't know the main bone(s) could be switched too!
I used bones for the mouth (and next episode for eyes, too probably, for this one I just moved manually keyframes...which was such a mess to do), I'm not yet very accustomed to Blend morph, but I'll give it a try.