Video Question: How to use smart bones more efficiently?

[mtbuck24]

Hello,

I had a couple of questions that I could not figure out and rather than typing my question I decided to just make a screen recording of my problem. I hope my questions make sense. The video is in the link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xmunayzx9x3zo ... 20Help.mp4

Thanks for your help!

[Undiscovered]

Hey I am a fan of your work.
I am not a professional, lol just trying to give you some ideas.
I noticed for the arms you are using bone strengths.
I usually like to put bone strength on zero and use bone point binding instead. It looks more natural to me.
Also If needed using the patch tool on the joints helps patch up the loose ends on joints and line strokes making it look natural.

I will let the professionals chime in to give you more detail.

btw.. I really loved your DR. video with him speaking.
It looked really good. I been struggling with lip syncing.

If it's not to much trouble, can you do a tutorial on who you did the lip sync for that character step by step for a sentence or 2.
It would really help a lot of us who are struggling with smart bones lip syncs.
I always struggle with the timing and the forming of syllables using the different smart bone actions. for example (open/close, squash/stretch, tongue etc.)

You are on the right track. Good luck to you,

[heyvern]

I haven't finished the whole video but got a good idea of what you need to know. Most of your questions are about the same thing.

Smart Bones are "cumulative" and "relative". Basically if you move a point in the main time line (or action or another smart bone action) and you then rotate a smart bone that also moves that point, both point movements are "added together". That is the "cumulative" aspect. All sb actions that move a point are added together so you get a compound effect.

Say you moved the entire tongue down in the mouth open action, then moved the top point/s only up in the tongue up action, then both together should work as expected. The mouth open or close the tongue points would be in the same relative position. However without "seeing" how they look together you can't be sure what will happen.

This can make it tricky to guess how these smart bones will work together. You sort of have to either jump back and forth tweaking point motion in each SB or alternatively, you could rotate a smart bone while editing ANOTHER smart bone, making sure to delete that other bone key when you are done. This will give you the movement of the points of one SB while editing another one.

You should probably do the "tweaking" in the bigger or global SB actions like the head turn or the mouth open. So for example activate the head turn action, and rotate the mouth open bone. Now tweak the points in the mouth so it stays "inside the head". This won't muck up the symmetry of the mouth open action.

Same for the tongue. Activate the mouth open action, rotate the tongue bone, then tweak the points that required. remember you don't have to move ALL the points on every action. You can simply move points that are required. For the tongue you probably would never need to move the points under the lower lip at the bottom of the tongue. Just move the top points of the tongue up.

Layer origin has absolutely no effect on point motion in an action or not. Layer origin only effects LAYER transformations.

Without seeing the actual file and how you keyed stuff, I can't say for certain why things are working the way they do but it seems like my guess is probably the cause of some inconsistencies.

[heyvern]

Oh another thing I try to do. I like to use bones for "global" movement as much as possible.

For example, the eyebrows. Just a general example that could work in a similar way for other things.

I would bind the points of one brow to a single bone, or use flexibinding on multiple bones in a chain. The brow bones would then be parented to a single bone that controls both brows simultaneously for easier control.

With just one bone for the brow you can control everything with just SB actions. However, you can control the movement of the brows much more reliably in SB actions by simply moving the bones. SB point motion would always be relative to the bone movement.

For example a head turn... turn to the right, move the brow parent bone. Both brows move together. Then maybe tweak the right brow bone slightly to bring them closer together and even scale that bone to "shorten" the right brow due to perspective.

The benefit of this is there is NO POINT MOTION CONFLICTS to worry about. The head turn isn't moving any points of the brows at all. All the brow motion for emotion or expression can be completely controlled in the brow smart bone actions.

Sometimes I like really complex expressive brows that are filled shapes. I use a small chain of 3 or 4 or more bones for each brow. Before the existence of Smart Bones, I would have high influence on those bones and move them around to create different emotions. Now with smart bones I can use both point and bone motion for brow movement.

For example if I had multiple bone chains controlling an eye brow shape, in the head turn I can move the parent brow bone to the right, then move the right brow parent bone slightly left, and scale ALL the right brow bones a bit to change the length of the eyebrow.

If i have point motion SB actions for that eyebrow it works perfectly with no worries because I have already sort of manipulated it before that action is applied. The brow SB moves the points "relative" the existing motion already applied by bones, other SB actions etc.

Phew, I hope I haven't given you too much information. Don't want to overwhelm.

[mtbuck24]

Hey Undiscovered!

Thank you so much for being my fan! haha...never had one of those before.
Ideas are good and I look for constructive criticism for sure!

I hope by sharing ideas back and forth we are able to create something amazing! lol
As far as using bone strengths the reason I use bone strengths is for the good ol' "ctrl+shift+f" actually it's fairly new to 9.5 I think haha. With bone flexi-binding you can't use that option unless your selected bones themselves have a strength of some sort.

I agree 100% and used bone point binding until I watched a video of how Victor Paredes in his spanish webinar of 9.5 used flexi-binding on his bones (I speak spanish ). But I also have found out that you should try lots of ways to rig your character.

I heard and experienced with patches (now don't take my word for it) they are good for certain animations. But once those two patches intersect, doesn't work so well, and that's why I have been trying to use smart bones.

btw.. I really loved your DR. video with him speaking.
It looked really good. I been struggling with lip syncing.

Thanks a lot for that! I honestly didn't know what to think about it and feel like such a noob on these forums, that is awesome to get feedback like that.

So just for you Undiscovered. I did do a tutorial. I busted out my old recording equipment, downloaded a open source screen recorder, and did my first ever tutorial. Right now it's compressing. I did my best to explain all the things that helped me get to that point of learning how to do lip syncing. Really when it comes down to it, it's trial and error...but the video itself is almost a half hour and I did my best to step you and beginners through it, so I hope that is detailed enough for you

I always struggle with the timing and the forming of syllables using the different smart bone actions. for example (open/close, squash/stretch, tongue etc.)

The timing for sure is hard. I was impressed that I got such positive feedback! But in the video I did my best to explain how to do those things step-by-step.

Thanks for everything!

[Undiscovered]

Awesome. Let us know when the video is available?

Thank you again.

[mtbuck24]

Awesome. Let us know when the video is available?

Thank you again.

Will do! This is my third go at the tutorial. My vide codec was unsupported

Should be up sometime today

Thanks!

[mtbuck24]

Hey heyvern! Thanks for your response I can't wait for that video!

This can make it tricky to guess how these smart bones will work together. You sort of have to either jump back and forth tweaking point motion in each SB or alternatively, you could rotate a smart bone while editing ANOTHER smart bone, making sure to delete that other bone key when you are done. This will give you the movement of the points of one SB while editing another one.

I love this part especially! Very smart thinking!

You should probably do the "tweaking" in the bigger or global SB actions like the head turn or the mouth open. So for example activate the head turn action, and rotate the mouth open bone. Now tweak the points in the mouth so it stays "inside the head". This won't muck up the symmetry of the mouth open action.

Very smart!

Layer origin has absolutely no effect on point motion in an action or not. Layer origin only effects LAYER transformations.

That would make sense!

Thank you so much for that explanation Heyvern! That took a while to understand everything but you did an awesome job at explaining after reading it 10 or more times it made sense! Thank you!

Let me know when you have that video! and if you have a youtube channel let me know!

Thanks for everything!

[mtbuck24]

If it's not to much trouble, can you do a tutorial on who you did the lip sync for that character step by step for a sentence or 2.
It would really help a lot of us who are struggling with smart bones lip syncs.
I always struggle with the timing and the forming of syllables using the different smart bone actions. for example (open/close, squash/stretch, tongue etc.)

Here it is! Sorry for the quality, can't do much with open source screen recorders. http://youtu.be/gRAgL_uEntk

[Undiscovered]

Hey thank you so much for that.
That is very helpful! The tutorial was very clear and professional, you might have found a new career with making animating tutorials.

I learned a lot and my favorite new thing I learned was learning about that selected bone angle lane on the grid timeline. That will help immensely.
I feel I will be able to make my lip-sync a lot more believable with smart bones now.

Thank you so much.


I would love to offer some ideas and tips in return.

I noticed in Anime Studio pro 9.5 they give you a choice to color bones.
Select a bone and then go to the top menu and select a different color.
This is cool cause you can then see the different bone color lanes on the grid timeline.
You get 6 different colors and 1 plain.
Check it out.

Also I found the video where a guy gives lessons about lip synching and he says to use the hand under the chin on the table.
Here is the link to the video..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKjMvlP4CE

Again thank you for taking the time to make the video.
It has helped me and I'm sure it will help many more in the future.
I look forward to more tutorials from you.

[mtbuck24]

No problem
I like to teach and help out others (when I can).
I am glad that you liked it and thought it was professional, I was having so much trouble getting it compressed. Ugh...I might just have to go and get the $200.00 software of camtasia...danget.

I learned a lot and my favorite new thing I learned was learning about that selected bone angle lane on the grid timeline. That will help immensely.
I feel I will be able to make my lip-sync a lot more believable with smart bones now.

Yeah I was hoping that would come in handy to someone! It took the longest time for me to figure that out as well haha.

I would love to offer some ideas and tips in return.

Thanks for your tips and the video!

If you haven't already check out my channel and subscribe! It's new and I know it's going to take a while to build up, (especially being a full time student) but I live in a town where animation is not popular at all. So word of mouth doesn't work where I'm at haha.

Thanks! Let me know if there is anything else you see and like and want a tutorial on!