Happy Bear WIP

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:15 pm

Happy Bear is part of a project I am working on. He is part of the group with my other character Larry the Liger.

I wasn't planning on using "brush hair" but... it looks so good and it animates FAST.

Happy Bear is different from Larry since I don't need to control his hair as much. He is just... fuzzy. And the brush technique works so well with him. I am a bit concerned about mixing the different styles but will see how they look together and make a decision later. He will have big bushy expressive eyebrows eventually.

Here he is without his custom hair brush:

-vern

artfx · Post by **artfx** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:21 pm

He doesn't seem as happy without the custom hair brush.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:38 pm

Well... he will never be seen without his hair.

I put up that image to show how simple the file will be for animating. Very low number of points.

"Happy Bear" is his stage name. His real name is Bill, and he is not generally happy at all. To do the "show" he must go against his nature and be sickeningly happy. He's only in it for the money and fame.

In his contract he gets paid a bonus if he is required to sing or dance.

-vern

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 8:57 am

Nice job on this bear.

I suppose the "happy" in his show name is only a spin to hide his grumpy nature from the audience. Make him really grumpy, because real life bear performances are often cases of animal cruelty. (Be sure to include that no animal was hurt during the creation of this animation in your credits).

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:45 pm

Great use of brush heyvern! I like that bear man!
Congratulations.

bupaje · Post by **bupaje** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 5:38 pm

Be cool to dynamically change brush and/or brush size because you could show his happy fuzz and then when agitated have the wild electrified spikey hair. Looks good.

ulrik · Post by **ulrik** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 6:03 pm

Great looking bear heyvern! I like the use of brushes and I agree with bupaje to be able to animate the brush and size of the brush, maybe I should put it up as a feauture request, I'll do that!
Good luck with your work!

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 7:39 pm

Well,

You can animate line width, which kind of sort of animates the brush "size".

I have several different brushes. The difference is how big they are in the space of the brush.

For instance:

This one fills the whole space from top to bottom. I use it for LARGE areas so I can get less of a repeating pattern with "higher" spacing percentage. I can have larger thicker denser hair.

This one is better for tighter smaller shapes and "shorter" hair. It has gaps top and bottom so I use a lower spacing percentage with out getting as much density. It handles "corners" better since the image is smaller. The larger one doesn't go around tight corners as well with small shapes.

Both brushes do "double duty". Since the "hair spikes" are on both sides of the stroke I get the hair effect on both sides to create "blends" with fewer shapes. This also eliminates a problem I have occasionally with brushes when the vectors are "flipped". with a one sided brush it will flip sides and not work properly depending on the direction or flow of the lines.

I also double the "resolution" of the brush image since I have such large widths (stroke width average between 10 and 20). I use a 256px square.

It is slow to animate with brushes turned on in the preview (not too slow actually), but is really fast when brushes are turned off.

Fewer points in the shapes is better with brushes like this. I need to keep the points spaced evenly and fairly far apart so I don't get "bunching". Brushes tend to overlap and get "thick" with a lot of closely spaced points.

-vern

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 9:44 pm

Latest version.

He looks so much more lively with eyebrows.

-vern

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:32 pm

There is a drawback with brushes. Camera zoom make them "move". So you have to avoid it if you don't want that effect. Anyway for non zoomed camera is perfect.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:45 pm

Genete,

There is a check box on the custom brush; "Minimize frame to frame randomness" that eliminates that "moving brush" problem.

The other drawback I am noticing is aliasing. I get really bad aliasing on the brushes at "normal" render size. I may have to render larger and scale down outside of AS if I use this technique.

I have to test this but it might have to do with my using extra large brushes.

-vern

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:23 pm

Yes I did'n realize that. Thankyou. Anyway I had problems in a very partucular situation. I made a video trying to "explore the llimits" of AS/Moho. So I made an animation from far zoomed to maximum amplification in an static drawing with nested drawings inside (search exploring the limist in the forum).

So I noticed that the eyebrow of my character (made with brushes) moves. Perhaps I did not use the "Minimize frame to frame randomness" (sure) but the when you go so far the problem still.

Look at this animation. It is only done combining zoom and camera movement in z direction.

Click here to watch Brush-test-66

i think you will never be in that situation, so long live brushes!!

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:35 am

Here's an update on Happy Bear:

I am loving this brush technique. If there was ever a perfect use for brushes... this is it!

-vern

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 9:52 am

Looks great. The colour gradations really give him that 3D look. Eyes are a bit piercing though -- maybe they could be toned down a smidgen?

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 11:31 am

I agree with jahnocli, the "black" of the eye rims should be a bit more like the color of the fur. Pure black ruins the 3D effect.