Bone morph dials script

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Rudiger
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Post by Rudiger »

Thanks, guys. I was thinking that the lack of response was due to the script being either so appreciated that people were busy trying it out or so crap that no one was inspired to post anything. It could also be people are just busy trying to stay afloat in these uncertain economic times as well!

Anyway, this script is just the beginning. I am now working on a full body version incorporating a standard bone rig with extra scripts to make it work in pseudo3D. So instead of setting the face to an expression then rotating the head you will be able to put the body into an arbitrary psuedo3D pose and then rotate the whole thing. Well, that's the theory, anyway. There lots of issues to sort out to make it a reality though.
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Barry Baker
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Post by Barry Baker »

Rudiger, your script is amazing. I'm lucky enough to have storyboarding work for the present, but it means I don't have time to experiment with ASPro as much as I would like to. But I'm definitely going to give the script a good working over when I get some time again.
chucky
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Post by chucky »

Hey Rudiger, How goes it?
Could you possibly post a quick instructional for us slo-pokes who haven't worked it out yet?
Wicked.
Rudiger
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Post by Rudiger »

Hey, Chuck. Welcome back from whatever part of oblivion you had disappeared to!

Which part are you having trouble with, installing or using? Heyvern pointed out one possible hurdle and that was you have to change the references to the embedded scripts in the example .anme file. Other than that, it should pretty much work as it does in the YouTube video, ie you move the control bones around to blend different expressions and head positions together.

The bakeMorphDials button tool just lets bake the effect of the control bones into the actual character, in case you're having trouble with speed, or want to affect the curvature or line-width. There is also a menu script for setting options for the various scripts. The createMorph button tool is for more advanced use, but I can go into it in more detail if you want.
F.M.
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Post by F.M. »

It's possible that some of us need help as to how you set the bones in the Youtube example{bones to layers}. Maybe that's what Chucky is referring to.
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Rudiger
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Post by Rudiger »

F.M. wrote:It's possible that some of us need help as to how you set the bones in the Youtube example{bones to layers}. Maybe that's what Chucky is referring to.
I don't quite understand your question. A layer will be controlled by the MorphDials layer if it has the rt_apply_morph_weights.lua script embedded and has action names which match the MorphDial bone names. I recommend creating a layer in parallel with TestHead layer and using it as a reference to create all the required actions for your own character. To make things easier you could create the actions at the GroupLayer level so the TestHead layer will transition to the same action as your new layer, but probably a good idea to temporarily move the MorphDials layer out of the group so as not to get all the actions being create there too.
chucky
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Post by chucky »

Howdy,
Your script works fantastically, I I didn't realise that you had got the actions to work with the morphs.... way to go Rudiger! I just don't get let out of my work cage enough these days to really have a good bash at it...What an awesome innovation though.....niiiice.
kevinhalg
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Post by kevinhalg »

I am very new to AS but I love what you have here. I am wondering how to use this in my own animation. I am unclear how to create the various poses, it seems that in your file you only have the one drawing but then it will morph to the other poses. Did you create the poses at different spots in the time line or am I way off?

Hope that makes sense. Thanks for any help you can provide!
Rudiger
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Post by Rudiger »

Yeah, I would have loved something like this when I first came to Anime Studio, but it had to wait until I got good enough at scripting.

To answer your question, the various poses are stored as actions for the head layer. For whatever reason, the actions window still remains hidden whenever you start Anime Studio, but when you bring it up it should make everything clear.
kevinhalg
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Post by kevinhalg »

Got it thanks!
DarthFurby
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Post by DarthFurby »

Hi Rudiger,

I finally tried your script.

I'm blown away.

This is basically the finished version of the pose bone script that people were working on in the other thread. LOVE that you can "bake" keyframes into the timeline, turn off the script and make adjustments on the fly. But there are so many great things here.

I'm so fired up I started working on a fully articulated head turn model, just like the one in your youtube video, using an old character design I did for Chucky's Anime Studio mascot thread last year. So far I've only got the front view, but here's a sneak peek(not sure about the hairstyle yet):

Image

Once I finish building all the different angles I'll make a video tutorial and demo. The most time consuming aspect of 2d character animation is rendering the finished artwork, also called the "cleanup" stage(I think), but with this script, after mapping out a handful of angles, every single inbetween pose is a finished drawing generated by the computer. It's a reusable model that saves an IMMENSE amount of time while maintaining absurdly high production value. These days 2d animation is all about the writing, nobody cares about the artwork anymore, it's too expensive, and I think that's really sad. The budgets just aren't there. A studio with high production standards needs Anime Studio Pro, especially if they want to keep the work in-house. I sincerely believe that.

Anyway, girls are extremely hard to draw, so it'll be awhile before I come back with the finished head model, but nothing sells like a pretty girl, and I really want the industry to pay attention to Anime Studio.



Anyway, I have one feature request:

1) Keyframable fill and stroke color channels(but if I had to pick one, just the fill color channel).

Ideally I'd love to see all keyframable attributes activated(bones, layer order, visibility, etc), but I don't know if the script would run with all that stuff turned on.

Anyway, thanks for this great script Rudiger. I hope I can do it justice.
Rudiger
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Post by Rudiger »

Hi Darth,

Wow, this is looking really fantastic! This is the sort of thing I hoped would happen when I first released this script. I hope I can have a play with it once its done. By the way, don't feel you have to limit yourself to the existing set of morph dials. Feel free to add some for eye direction, secondary hair motion, or even phonemes. I would also love it if you would consider adding some shading to the model, as I believe you could do some impressive dynamic lighting effects by having a separate set of morph dials for the lighting direction.

I agree that your excellent model could help get Anime Studio some attention, which is one of the reasons I wrote this script. I mean the cheap Flash look was a great novelty for a while, but I think now if I see one more single-frame head turn, I'm going to scream!

Oh, and adding shape and stroke keys shouldn't be a hassle, and I can always make it an option if it slows things down too much, but it wouldn't be available in real-time mode anyway as they colors can't be set without creating a keyframe.
DarthFurby
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Post by DarthFurby »

As soon as I've finished the model I'll upload the project file for everyone to play with. The videos will probably follow a bit later. My main intention here is to promote the script as a production tool for those unfamiliar with Anime Studio. I think people will be shocked. I'M shocked. I'll also experiment with adding dynamic lighting/shading effects, along with some other features, if possible.

I may not like everything, but 2d animation is big enough for everything, whether it's a low budget Flash show, a single frame head turn, or a character built in 2.5D. However, 2d software is reaching a point where Disney/Bluth quality animation will be accessible to people who may not necessary draw well, but who can animate a state of the art 2.5D digital action figure/barbie doll with controls so simple a child could operate them.
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Víctor Paredes
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Post by Víctor Paredes »

Rudiger! I just can play a little with your script and it's awesome, but really AWESOME. I just love how it add more movement depending of the angle of a bone.
I think it has many more applications than just for a dummy head (I don't mean the head is useless, it's actually GREAT and ten times better than I thought whit poses script).

I'll try more and I'm sure I'll be back with a lot of questions... I hope you have some time for me :)
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Víctor Paredes
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Post by Víctor Paredes »

Ok, Rudiger, first question. Any chance to include more channels of animation, as curvature, color, etc?
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