Moho Forum

So, here's a first draft of my entry for the Animation Forum Lip Sync Challenge.

Initially i started writing out an Xsheet by hand - i've never done that before, it was interesting but i got bored after two lines of dialogue (i should have used papagayoMod with Xsheet)... anyway, reason being was i originally wanted to do it in PAP the traditional way - another thing i've never done before.

Here's what happened:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=072Tgwfjmpg

I didnt have the time or patience in the end to work on it this way, i work a million times faster in AS.

I didn't spend a great deal of time drawing this character, but rigging the hands took ages. using tips i picked up from watching 'Onionskining's youtube video tutorials, i made the hands with lines for the fingers (makes nice bending), i put finger 'pads' on the end (rather than circular caps, looks more like figers to me) and used stacked shapes, the back of which have outlines, and the front have fills... watch his video where he creates an overlapping arm.

Here's a picture to explain it:


the blow up at the top shows all the shapes used, and where you see them overlap a similar shape with an outline only below. Each finger is a line with two fills and is made up of two shapes so the top half of the finger can go over the bottom half.

This is probably the most complex but nice looking hand rig i've ever created... the biggest PITA was ordering the 30+ shapes so that the fingers all overlap eachother. To do different positions i needed 3 different duplicatges of the hand rig, with different finger order stacks one for an outward 'knock', an outward 'fist' and an inward 'fist' (back of the hand)

Once i had that, i put them into a switch layer and swapped them as needed, mainly during arm movement for disguise.

Anyhow - here's where i'm at now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZycCwA6EdAA

To animated I did the body movements first, then arms and head, then hands and finally did all the lipsync with point motion.

It's still very much a WIP, I think the deadline is in November, so any tips will be duely considered

Can you explain the fingers again please? I don't really understand how the base shape was made from a curve rather than a fill shape. Could you break down the index finger and explain? Ta.

just like this (by Onionskining):
http://www.youtube.com/user/onionskinin ... KHJbkvYFUg

although i didn't need to use any custom brush - maybe due to the size of the hands, the lines don't seem to be visible (i just zoomed in, they are hairline cracks)...

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Here's an update with camera cuts to make it look more dynamic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lxWBZYXwWw

This hand rig is something I'll keep - there's some clever ideas in it.

I should have known all this in 1993 when I got the task to convert the character "Rolf" into a rig in Animo. Rolf was a dancing hand advertising the new 5-digit ZIP codes in Germany. In the end we decided that a complete rig for all his complicated movements was just too complicated to build, so he was animated on paper and cleaned with a thick Edding marker.
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ge_PLZ.jpg[/img]

hehe, nice slow...

...getting the fingers in the right order is still something that is making my head hurt - i move one part up, another part is wrong, adjust and repeat - when each finger is made up of 5+ parts that has to be below the thumb and palm but above the other fingers and thumb bass - maybe there's a simple formula, but i've not yet worked it out!

It seems good that hand. Must try.

I normally try not to make hands with bones and prepare for them to be moved to points. You can make more positions and has many limitations.

feel free to show us a picture of how you set up your hands

Thanks for explaining/sharing those videos. Makes sense now. Ta!

it turns out i have extra shapes i dont need - the finger tips can have an outline and a fill seperate without two overlapping shapes - just create the outline first, click off, then reselect, create the fill, and then you can put the fill and outline on seperate sides of another shape using stacking order...

Very nice rig!!thank you so much!!