Hi All
I'm having a little hassle with point clustering during a smart bone turn. This tends to happen the most with hair and beards as there are naturally more points to start with. What happens is on a front view, the hair comes down both sides of the face. As the head turns, the hair naturally should go behind the face. This means all the points that create the hair to the side, must then go up to the top section and all these points cluster up into one big group. This makes the process quite painstaking slow to complete the turns and manipulate all these.
Am I missing a trick here with how to deal with all these points through a smart bone head turn? All the tutorials I can find tend to deal with "basic" head turns so don't encounter this problem to start with.
Cheers
Pete
Point clusters with smart bone turns
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neeters_guy
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Re: Point clusters with smart bone turns
Hair is tough to animate. It helps to think of hair as clumps, then you would use layer ordering to move the clumps around the head. This thread touches on this topic:
What is their secret?
If you need a wide turn, say front to side, point clustering is inevitable and needs extra planning on construction. You may have to consider a switch if the change is too extreme. It sort of depends on the hair style. Could you show an example of what you need?
What is their secret?
If you need a wide turn, say front to side, point clustering is inevitable and needs extra planning on construction. You may have to consider a switch if the change is too extreme. It sort of depends on the hair style. Could you show an example of what you need?
Re: Point clusters with smart bone turns
Another trick that can be used in some situations are stroke brushes for hair. It's not always going to work for every hair style but it can create the effect of hair without all the points.
Another trick I use (not just for hair) is to have multiple shapes at different levels in the layer shape order, or on different layers.
If the hair is on a separate layer you can animate visibility or layer order.
If the hair shape is on the same layer as the head and face you can animate the shape opacity with smart bones instead of layer order or layer visibility. I have a shape with two adjacent keys that toggle the opacity. I don't want the shapes to "fade out" and since step keys don't work inside the smart bone action I simply put two keys right next to each other where I want a shape to "disappear". A key with full opacity, and a key on the next frame with 0 opacity. What you could do is draw two shapes for the hair that sort of "match" up at a specific turning point transition.
Another trick I use (not just for hair) is to have multiple shapes at different levels in the layer shape order, or on different layers.
If the hair is on a separate layer you can animate visibility or layer order.
If the hair shape is on the same layer as the head and face you can animate the shape opacity with smart bones instead of layer order or layer visibility. I have a shape with two adjacent keys that toggle the opacity. I don't want the shapes to "fade out" and since step keys don't work inside the smart bone action I simply put two keys right next to each other where I want a shape to "disappear". A key with full opacity, and a key on the next frame with 0 opacity. What you could do is draw two shapes for the hair that sort of "match" up at a specific turning point transition.
Re: Point clusters with smart bone turns
Hi Guys
Great advice as always! I have created a couple of different versions of the hair that relate to certain points of the turn and then used a switch layer to switch between them. Obviously at a certain point, the active one will match the shape of the next one and then I just perform the switch and the new version takes over from there. Seems so simple when you know how! This seems to work pretty well. I also like the idea of different layers that change order through the turn. I might have a play with that later too.
I have one more question if I may. I don't know if it's a bug or not but when I render out the head turn, I keep getting these lines appear through the hair at various points. I have worked out that it happens when 2 points get too close to each other or sometimes cross. I have tried to eliminate them but it's like some crazy puzzle where I keyframe one out and as a result, another one appears somewhere else. At this rate I'm going to have to keyframe every single frame to make sure the points don't cross (don't cross the streams, Venkman!). I don't remember this ever happening with AS 9.5 so I guess it is a bug, but not sure if maybe I'm doing something wrong as I'm still very new to all this.
Cheers
Pete
Great advice as always! I have created a couple of different versions of the hair that relate to certain points of the turn and then used a switch layer to switch between them. Obviously at a certain point, the active one will match the shape of the next one and then I just perform the switch and the new version takes over from there. Seems so simple when you know how! This seems to work pretty well. I also like the idea of different layers that change order through the turn. I might have a play with that later too.
I have one more question if I may. I don't know if it's a bug or not but when I render out the head turn, I keep getting these lines appear through the hair at various points. I have worked out that it happens when 2 points get too close to each other or sometimes cross. I have tried to eliminate them but it's like some crazy puzzle where I keyframe one out and as a result, another one appears somewhere else. At this rate I'm going to have to keyframe every single frame to make sure the points don't cross (don't cross the streams, Venkman!). I don't remember this ever happening with AS 9.5 so I guess it is a bug, but not sure if maybe I'm doing something wrong as I'm still very new to all this.
Cheers
Pete