mouth shapes and smart bones

[slowtiger]

I've ran into a fix now. I created a reasonably good head turn and tilt and everything, with smart bones working nicely, but everything is done with point motion since this is what I got to work. Now my problem is that the mouth shapes look nicely in front view but ugly in 3/4 view. (No switch layers used.)

Is there any good example in the factory content with a good mouth shapes setup which works even in head turns, so I can study this? Or anywhere else?

Also my understanding is that by using switch layers, I need to apply any changes in a head turn to each and every layer inside the switch separately. Correct?

[Greenlaw]

I have tricks for this I've used over the years.

The easiest is to simply rotate the mouth on the Y axis, adding real perspective to the image. This can work with simpler characters who don't have a lot of detail in their mouth shapes. I use this as part of the head turn Smart Bone Dial (SBD), but sometimes make it a separate SBD so I can control the degree of the rotation.

For more realistic mouths, I place each mouth shape in it's own group, and separate the drawing into the following layers:

1. Mouth (the main shape)
2. Teeth (upper and lower)
3. Tongue

Now, when I want to 'turn' the mouth, I can change the angle by sliding the Teeth and Tongue layers a shorter distance than the Mouth layer, creating the appearance of depth. Simulating depth this way is a trick, but a pretty good one...and a lot easier than animating points in a single layer.

For more realistic mouths, I'll also add some point animation in the mouth shape to change the drawing's perpective. Depending on the level of detail in the design, I can see also doing this for the tongue and teeth, but I don't think that's ever been necessary in my work.

Another convenient option is to employ a mesh warp to alter the shape of the mouth during the turn. I frequently use this technique as it's a global change that doesn't necessitate modifying individual drawings. I first saw Victor using this technique when I worked with him on Boss Baby, and I adopted it ever since.

Many times, I'll use a combination of the techniques above. How effective the techniques are depends on the planning I put into the drawing construction and layering, but I've also successfully applied these tricks as an afterthought.

Hope this helps.

[slowtiger]

Thanks! But I should've been more specific: I need some help with the rigging/smart bone setup, in particular, which transformation should be done with bones and which one with points. I've seen a bunch of videos which either tackle a head turn or a mouth shape setup, but none combining both.

Oh well, maybe I should just go to bed and let the solution come to me in a dream.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, I think I understand. I animate the mouth direction movements with two separate Smart Bone Dials: head turn (Left/Right or on Y) and Head Tilt (Up/Down or on X).

A long time ago, I did this exclusively with Point animation, taking great care that the Turn Smart Bone controlled only points' X movement and that the Tilt Bone controlled only their Y movement. This can work, but it's a headache to prevent errors and conflicts.

Since then, I prefer to use a bone to move a mouth group for the turn motion, with some point animation added to the Smart bone for perspective shifts, and directly animate the mouth group on Y for the up/down motion. I tend to avoid adding Y-point animation, especially if that axis is being controlled at all in the Turn action. Usually, just moving the group up and down works fine.

Sometimes, I'll use a separate child bone to move the group on Y instead; this means I can keep all the keyframes in the Bones channel, which simplifies animation and editing. To prevent confusion and error during animation, I'll Shy these 'mover' bones. This way, I use only the Smart Bone to animate these items, and can't accidentally keyframe the 'mover' bones and create a conflict.

For very realistic characters, I might also insert Mesh Warp layers and/or other tricks I described earlier. This level of detail doesn't come up that often, though. When I need that much realism, it's time to switch to a 3D program.

[slowtiger]

I found a solution - for now. Using a switch for the mouth, controlled by a smart bone.

Each mouth shape is a complex setup of shapes on one layer, with holes to avoid masking but still show teeth. (I'll maybe post the setup, but not before September, I have 3 jobs to finish at the same time now ...)

Duplicate this layer, make phonemes M X E I A O F (X is the idle mouth which I need often).

Turn action: go into each mouth layer and change what's needed (a lot). Repeat for other direction. (Points only.)
Tilt action: same, but only for 3 mouth shapes.
Smile action: only affects M layer.

Now I can continue any dialogue while he's turning his head, and in front view even tilt it a bit.

This is not a 100% complete rig, it works only for what I need right now (again, I did the storyboard so I should know which expression and poses I need).

[slowtiger]

I guess y'all want to see the results by now ...

https://youtu.be/vWnc8BzuaJM

[SuperSGL]

WOW great job with the lip syncing even if you used a program this must have been quite tedious to animate. Even the jaw moving adds greatly to the effect. I see so many that don't move the jaw and makes the animation appear static. Nice work! When I use switch layers I can never get them all to work with the head turns.

[slowtiger]

In fact it wasn't as tedious as you might think. The setup worked as planned (aside from tiny quirks). Drawing body poses is very fast, and the time I used to refine the head rig was well spent since I had nearly no corrections done later. Lip sync was done by hand, again having to move just 1 dial makes it fast.

I've noticed that a certain order of doing things works best for this:
- First overall poses, like the body (switch layer), sideways head tilts, if necessary, adjust head position a bit.
- Next would be head turns and tilts.
- Eye brows. Swinging hair (only 1 character).
- Blinks and eye lid positions. Pupil positions.
- Last thing I do is the lip sync as all the keys clog up the timeline.

Sticking to this, all scenes with this setup were simple assembly line work. Otherwise I wouldn't been able to turn out 7 minutes of this in about 2 months' time. And don't forget that I also do backgrounds and all other stuff all by myself.

[Mikes1025]

Hi I'm just starting Moho and I'm at my wits end with smart dials right now. I thought I might add to this post to be conservative since it almost hosts the same issue I have. If I'm wrong in this let me know, I'll make a new post accordingly.

I have a video of the issue to spell it out clearly and a copy of my file hyperlinked for review. To be short I can't figure out how to get what I call smart dials to animate like the actions I've created inform them to. How exactly do I make smart dials active and ready to use for animation? Thanks in advance

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
https://youtu.be/fxdsOQthkhU

[synthsin75]

Your smart bone action name must match the smart bone name exactly. They are connected by the name.

[Mikes1025]

ain't that something, you're absolutely right. The animation for the 'head turn' dial is wonky and the 'eyes' dial doesn't move at all now but I should be able to figure that out. Thank you synthsin75!