Smart Bone Basics - screencast tutorial

[funksmaname]

Hey all,
I was lucky enough to get early access to AS pro 9 during beta, and I wanted to make you salivate about what is possibly the most important development in AS history - Smart Bone Actions.

The video is almost 15 mins long, and shows a couple of other new features (new onionskin behaviour, and actions window improvements). I forgot to mention that you can now reorder actions inside the actions palette! So many new features have been introduced, and the new focus on pro development is already showing... It's really a very exciting time for AS!!

I wanted to clarify how to set up smart bones, but if you have any questions please ask them below.

Selgin has now posted the inspirational thread of rigs he's been working on - find it here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22970
Mike's video I mentioned is this one: http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... IC_ID=1448

They both show many use cases for smart bones but don't show how to set them up - so it's a great compliment to this tutorial.



notes:
1) once you set a bone to a particular rotation, you can ALWAYS move further down the timeline and add a bigger rotation (or delete the rotation and start again)
2) I forgot to mention, that once you are in the smart bone action editing mode, moving any other bones has NO INFLUENCE over your actual action, which is why I can move the rest of the leg around without it being effected. Only the smart bone position and point changes are stored and recalled when a smart bone is subsequently used
3) You can add bone actions to your existing rigs without changing anything - just create an action named the same as a bone
4) using bone actions doesn't put down point keyframes on the timeline, so even after you've done all your bone animation you can tweak your smart actions and the entire animation will be updated

more notes as questions come in... enjoy!

[ahzra]

thanks very much for the video

[Gnaws]

Thank you, Funks! This looks absolutely AMAZING!!! Hurray, ASP!!!

[drumlug13]

Oh this is sweet sweet stuff

[madrobot]

Great video. Thanks Funk

[Yosemite Sam]

Thanks Funks,

My mind is already racing with all the new possibilities. Indeed, it's a good time to be an ASP user.

[pihms]

Great video tutorial! I really got a lot out of the movement of the various points. I seemed to have gotten lost on the part with the dial. I can't seem to figure that out even after watching the video over and over.

[funksmaname]

Hi pihms,
Thanks for the comments.
It was a little 'breezed over' but the main point is that the points that are moved by any smart bone have nothing to do with the bone itself - i.e. where the bone is for a limb and turning it fixes that limb, the relationship is coinsidence - any smart bone can effect ANY points for child vector layers, and the fact a bone has no influence at all over points in a traditional 'bone' manner means you can create lots of different 'control dials' for any type of motion (face morphing for example, see my other recent vids)

Once you know how to create a smart bone action, the world is your oyster - check out Selgin's fantastic thread for inspiration!

[dreeko13]

I'd love to see this video of yours (it's the Scott McCloud face theory one) recreated using the new smart bones feature, how would you tackle it now that you have these new toys to play with?

http://youtu.be/-MknsoFekRo

Any chance?

Cheers
D

[funksmaname]

Hi Dreeko,
There's no support for a control bone in smart bones (yet?) so you can't exactly set up the same thing. However, if you set up each facial expression with a bone (like you'd have to using MorphDials anyway) the only difference is that you have to mix them by turning the individual bones you plan to mix instead of bringing them toward a central control bone (or moving a control bone over them).

for ease, add a 0 to 90degree angle constrint for each bone, and set the 100% expression at 90 degrees on the bone dial
make as many as you need and lay them out next to eachother.

For more precise control, use 180 degrees (or 360!)

you CAN create a set of 'pre mixed' settings as a normal action which can be recalled (this would position all of the bones to a particular angle to 'save' a result you like for quickly recalling)