Character animation

# 1 21-05-2013 , 01:00 PM

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Join Date: Oct 2008

Location: Netherlands

Posts: 61

Lately I have been working on rigging some characters. Currently I'm working on a ball shaped character with no limps (just hands and feet).

user added image

Right now I'm trying to get the blend shapes for his eyelid movement to work properly. Right now however the eyelid moves right through the eye instead of moving over the surface of the eye. How can I get the eye to open and close correctly? Can I do this with blend shapes or should I work with joints?

user added image

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# 2 21-05-2013 , 02:50 PM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

Blendshapes move linearly, so it will pass through the geometry. You can do this with corrective blendshapes, but it's a big pain. You're better off doing it with joints.

Btw, your character reminds me of the little green guy from Wreck it Ralph. user added image

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 3 21-05-2013 , 04:08 PM

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Yeah I thought so. Now I just need to figure out how I can rig the eyelids with joints. I assume it pretty much works like rigging the fingers of a hand using set driven keys?

And you're right about him looking like the character from Wreck it Ralph user added image

I really liked that character and it doesn't look to difficult to animate. I got another character rigged and ready to animate but that's a human cartoony looking character. It's the first time I will give character animation a go so I didn't want to make it to hard on myself. And I think it's a pretty cool character

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# 4 21-05-2013 , 06:43 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

Actually you can make in-between blend shape targets. Create another copy with with the eyes partially open, and select the blend shapes in sequence. Then when you create your blend shape, check the "in-between" option.

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# 5 21-05-2013 , 08:16 PM

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Join Date: Oct 2008

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That worked like a charm. Thanks for the tip.

Still I might give rigging it with joints a try. Don't know what the best solution is to animating a face.

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# 6 22-05-2013 , 12:05 AM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

As I said above, you can do it with corrective blendshapes; however it still looks "wrong", as it's still linear, just with an extra stop. I would recommend doing it with joints. They're almost always better to use if you can, especially with such an important area like the eyes.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 7 22-05-2013 , 07:15 AM

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Join Date: Oct 2008

Location: Netherlands

Posts: 61

I gave it a quick try last night and it looked okay but I didn't checked it out properly so I don't know if it looks good enough but I'm definitely going to try rigging it with joints. I just don't know where to start so I'm currently trying to find some good tutorials on this.

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