Mirror Point Movement

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:33 pm

When I draw characters (mostly refering to a frontal view), I draw one side, then copy, paste, and flip the points and stitch them together.

However, sometimes there's some adjusting to be done, like the face is a bit to wide or whatever the case may be.

What would be useful in this case is a mirror point moment type feature, where if I move a point on the left, it mirrors it on the right so that my characters head is always exactly the same on each side.

I believe the easist way to do this would be to make it work on a per point basis.

For example, I select two points and when I move one of them the other point that's selected moves in a mirror fashion.

This may be something that can be achieved through scripting, but I don't know lua to well at the moment, so I'm not sure.

Hopefully my description is understandable, if not I'll try and make it more clear.

Fazek · Post by **Fazek** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:36 am

It is possible to do such thing using LayerScripts, but it is not easy to tell which points are mirroring which points. For example, you can write a Layerscript, specially to modify the second 25 points of a mesh, using the positions of the first 25 points. Maybe you can split the face into two layers and mirror one of them with the "Layer" transformations. Then you can use, for example my "Mesh Instancing" layerscript to follow the modifications.

But this is an interesting question and I am thinking on a tool (perhaps to add new features to my existing tools) to support this. It would work a bit similar to the Magnet tool, moving the points around a defined mirroring point or line. It would be useful to modify mouths, face expressions and any symmetric shapes.

Rai López · Post by **Rai López** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:32 am

Fazek wrote:but it is not easy to tell which points are mirroring which points.

HI! ...Could be possible ussing some special group names? I always have been interested about how Layer Scripts could interact with points using group names to get some control about you want to reach...

Fazek · Post by **Fazek** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:12 am

I think it is possible. Perhaps you need a name for two points to define the axis, a name for the points you want to mirror and a name for the mirrored points.

But now I had some time so I made the special Magnet tool with the mirroring support. I think it is not a final version and I'll try to make it more comfortable later. Download and try it, it's in the fa_script_tools package.
http://www.firkafilm.com/moho/index.html

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:14 am

Hey Fazek, I really like it and is exactly what I was lookin' for.

I'm wondering if you could make other tools work in a mirroring fashion like that such as the add point tool.

Would really make drawning identical sides quick and painless.

Thanx alot.

bupaje · Post by **bupaje** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:24 am

Sounds cool Fazek - thanks for your continued creation of user tools.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:34 pm

This would require always working on a "mirrored mesh" exactly in the center or moving the origin point of the layer... but...

Couldn't you define the mirrored points based on the screen or layer center point?

So if you select a point on one side... it has a specific location in relation to the screen... just move the same point on the other side (within a range).

-vern

Fazek · Post by **Fazek** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:44 pm

Selection of the mirroring mode could work through several tools, I think. For example, the "Select points" and as Postality asked, the "Add points" could work good with this option. I want to put some constrain and grid feature to the positioning of the mirror. I think it is a bit confusing to put the mirror "handles" over the selected points if you choose the "By selected points" option. Maybe in this case the handles will be identical to the selected points. It would be better if the axis or center follows its selector points through the timeline, if once selected.