New improved Head Turn Technique!
Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:29 pm
Hi, I have a new head turn technique and I think it will be big.
There are many solutions for head turns here on forum and many of them work well, but no one of them (including my own tests) solve this problem:
You can have a front view with all the mouth inside the face and make it talk, but when you want to pass to a completely side view of the character you are forced to create a new model and play with switches or whatever technique to simulate they are "the same head".
Now here is my idea. Using masks we can easily have a character which actually can turn on 360 degrees with no problems:
How it works:
It's hard to me to explain it, but I'll try. I needed to have a head with a bite, just like the apple of Apple... and that bite must be able to move around the head to stay on the side or on the center of the head, this way it could be animated with the head turn.
That was easy to do using masking, but I needed to have the outline on the bite sector too, something that you can't make using a simple mask.
The better idea I had to obtain this is on this anme file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dhgjt0ozzj2
Here is a visual explanation of its masking (if someone has a better idea, just tell, please
(Notice in the file that the shape on the layer "mouth" has only stroke, no fill)
The only disadvantage of this way of masking is that you are forced to use a layer script to control two layers at the same time (actually, you can do it without the script, but you would had to animate two identical layers separately all the time, which is just a waste of time). But don't be afraid, the use of the script is extremely easy. You just must have two identical layers with the same name, but one with ".dup". For example, you will have face and face.dup. Then you attach the script to both layers and animate both just moving the points of "face" (be sure that "face" is below "face.dup" on layer order).
Well, sorry for the long post. If someone has something to ask or to add, please feel welcome. I think this way to make head turns on AS can be a new reference and I'm pretty clear it can be improved and simplified.
Thanks.
There are many solutions for head turns here on forum and many of them work well, but no one of them (including my own tests) solve this problem:
You can have a front view with all the mouth inside the face and make it talk, but when you want to pass to a completely side view of the character you are forced to create a new model and play with switches or whatever technique to simulate they are "the same head".
Now here is my idea. Using masks we can easily have a character which actually can turn on 360 degrees with no problems:
How it works:
It's hard to me to explain it, but I'll try. I needed to have a head with a bite, just like the apple of Apple... and that bite must be able to move around the head to stay on the side or on the center of the head, this way it could be animated with the head turn.
That was easy to do using masking, but I needed to have the outline on the bite sector too, something that you can't make using a simple mask.
The better idea I had to obtain this is on this anme file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dhgjt0ozzj2
Here is a visual explanation of its masking (if someone has a better idea, just tell, please
(Notice in the file that the shape on the layer "mouth" has only stroke, no fill)
The only disadvantage of this way of masking is that you are forced to use a layer script to control two layers at the same time (actually, you can do it without the script, but you would had to animate two identical layers separately all the time, which is just a waste of time). But don't be afraid, the use of the script is extremely easy. You just must have two identical layers with the same name, but one with ".dup". For example, you will have face and face.dup. Then you attach the script to both layers and animate both just moving the points of "face" (be sure that "face" is below "face.dup" on layer order).
Well, sorry for the long post. If someone has something to ask or to add, please feel welcome. I think this way to make head turns on AS can be a new reference and I'm pretty clear it can be improved and simplified.
Thanks.