Looking for assitance - simulating "cartoonish" looking wet paint animation

[Lydia]

Ah, the bug drives a beetle.

Nice walk. I think it looks quite funny and fits the character well. And you even animated the antennas.
Maybe you can get the head to stay straight and the hip to move slightly up and down instead (high point/recoil). Then Vic gets a better contact to the ground and doesn't look a little bit like a puppet floating on strings. Are you working with controllers and targets?
Do you still plan to animate the face?

I think the most important thing in animation is timing, no matter if you're animating very detailed or reduced, cartoony or realistic. I mean, not too even but dynamic movements in terms of speed. So in your example, when he slams the door: swing out (preferably taking the whole body with him a bit, not just the arm, with the head in the opposite direction), pause very briefly and then close the door very quickly. (The Beetle might even wobble a bit after the door slams shut.) Feel free to exaggerate a bit.
I initiate almost every movement with a slight counter movement. So, for example, before the Beetle would start walking.

But these are all just tips. I know animation is very time consuming and I really think your bug is already very cuddly!

 

[BTT1024]

Ah, the bug drives a beetle.

Nice walk. I think it looks quite funny and fits the character well. And you even animated the antennas.
Maybe you can get the head to stay straight and the hip to move slightly up and down instead (high point/recoil). Then Vic gets a better contact to the ground and doesn't look a little bit like a puppet floating on strings. Are you working with controllers and targets?
Do you still plan to animate the face?

I think the most important thing in animation is timing, no matter if you're animating very detailed or reduced, cartoony or realistic. I mean, not too even but dynamic movements in terms of speed. So in your example, when he slams the door: swing out (preferably taking the whole body with him a bit, not just the arm, with the head in the opposite direction), pause very briefly and then close the door very quickly. (The Beetle might even wobble a bit after the door slams shut.) Feel free to exaggerate a bit.
I initiate almost every movement with a slight counter movement. So, for example, before the Beetle would start walking.

But these are all just tips. I know animation is very time consuming and I really think your bug is already very cuddly!

Lydia,
Thank you for your feedback. I'm trying to do a better job with this Bug animation project and not hurry it like I did with others. I just did that Halloween animation, posted in the Gallery in a super-hurry with no time to do things really well (a lot of mistakes in that one, many removed), because I had the idea for that one 3 weeks ago and just had make it real, as I could see it in my mind and felt driven to get it done and rushed to get it done for Halloween...

My first Walk-cycle test for Vic the bug, was so very robotic looking - So, I went back to give him more character in his walk and animate the antenna. I'll work on the head movement and try to get the hips to move up and down - I hope I don't have problems with the Vertex Weight causing deformation in the hip area because I don't like using the Vertex Weight tool to adjust the heat map, it drives me nuts playing around with that and always hope that stuff just works without issue.

I've seen posts with controllers and targets and I have no clue on how to create them and use them - Something I should go read about now to keep in line with my trying to do things correctly this time - I'll look for any related posts and go read them - If you have any links, feel free to post...

Yes, I plan to animate the face. I was playing around with using some Joints (bones) for the jaw and using the F-Curve Controller and SoundLoader scripts to drive the mouth movement - I used those scripts for that Get Well Soon animation I did for my niece to animate the Bear's mouth mesh with a Morph tag, but I adjusted the "Conversion" formula and it came out OK but could have been better. For the test I did with Vic the bug using the joints, it didn't turn out that good. I used those scripts with adjusting the formula to animate the Skeleton Jaw in my halloween animation and spent so much time to get it as good as I could. There's a lot of tinkering with the "Resolution" in the sound loader properties that has to be done and making sure the source audio is clearly articulated... So, I went back to just working on the soundloader/F-Curve Controller with a Mesh Morph tag on the Vic Bug but there's more work I have to do to get that looking good. I wish there was more documentation for the F-Curve Controller and SoundLoader scripts related to the formula and the sound resolution (and other properties).

The eyes are separate Objects but in the Character's Joint Hierarchy (head part) and I've done tests using a "Target" tag on them and using a non-visible sphere to control the eye movement, pointing them to where I need them to go. Maybe that's not the best way to do that - so, I'm open to any input you have related to that.

When I did that test Vic Walk Cycle video, I just put him in the unfinished scene and threw in the door close movement without using poses (manually moving) just to see what it would look like. But, I will make note of your advice so that when I get to the doing the actual completed scene, with Vic and Marty closing the doors to go off on their walk, I will add what you noted about the arm, body, head, swing timing and the car wobble... Those little details like you noted all add up and make a difference in the overall feel of the movie.

Up until I got side tracked with my hurried Halloween animation, I was reading and looking at videos related to the (12) Principles of Animation - and trying to take it all in and think more about the details like you noted....

Here are some of the places, things, videos I was looking at (I posted over in the halloween thread too):

Angry Animator: https://www.angryanimator.com/word/
Angry Animator on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/angryanimators/videos


The Illusion of Animation by Hjalti Hjalmarsson:

The Principles of Animation by Hjalti Hjalmarsson:

Thank you again for your thoughts and input,
Brian T.

 

[BTT1024]

Ah, the bug drives a beetle.

Nice walk. I think it looks quite funny and fits the character well. And you even animated the antennas.
Maybe you can get the head to stay straight and the hip to move slightly up and down instead (high point/recoil). Then Vic gets a better contact to the ground and doesn't look a little bit like a puppet floating on strings. Are you working with controllers and targets?
Do you still plan to animate the face?

I think the most important thing in animation is timing, no matter if you're animating very detailed or reduced, cartoony or realistic. I mean, not too even but dynamic movements in terms of speed. So in your example, when he slams the door: swing out (preferably taking the whole body with him a bit, not just the arm, with the head in the opposite direction), pause very briefly and then close the door very quickly. (The Beetle might even wobble a bit after the door slams shut.) Feel free to exaggerate a bit.
I initiate almost every movement with a slight counter movement. So, for example, before the Beetle would start walking.

But these are all just tips. I know animation is very time consuming and I really think your bug is already very cuddly!

Yes, I planned for him to drive the Beetle. The term "Bug" referring to the VW Beetle comes into play (word play) with something their bug friend says to Vic and Marty when they meetup with him after they get stuck in the wet paint. I got that free model from SketchFab and removed roof rack and items, removed some stuff from the paint on the hood, and cut out the doors for animation.

1963 VW Beetle on SketchFab:
"1963 Volkswagen Beetle" (https://skfb.ly/oo7pB) by aleksey.matveenko is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

 

[BTT1024]

Zoohead, Thank you for the Thumbs up.

 

[Lydia]

I hope I don't have problems with the Vertex Weight causing deformation in the hip area because I don't like using the Vertex Weight tool to adjust the heat map, it drives me nuts playing around with that and always hope that stuff just works without issue.

I feel the same way - I hate vertex weight painting! Every time I use that tool, my character looks like it's had a bad accident. And that's why I also always hope it works without it.

About the controllers: Zoohead has made some very good post. Here for example the "Ultimate Human Rig".

Ultimate Human Rig

This rig has a user friendly design with elbow knee and foot control. Select a Pole Folder when the Transform Tool is active and you can rotate it around the IK vector. For individual Foot/Leg control the move the circle spline. For both feet, use the large square spline. To roll onto the...

www.cheetah3d.com

I simply adopted that at the beginning. If you have understood that so far, you can expand and rebuild it for your purposes.
With the eyes, I must unfortunately admit that I have also not yet solved so optimally. I am unsure myself what the best method is. Anyway, that's how my Marty rig looks at the moment.

But I will change it. Currently he has bones in the face, but that does not work well, so I will probably do it with morph sliders. As you may see, I'm not sure about the feet yet either... (I did the balls on the chest so he can breathe.) Also, I still often struggle with jumping/flipping joints. By now it mostly works well, but I still have problems with certain, more extreme movements.

Well, I will have to do a lot more work, because my Marty often doesn't do what I want. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose to annoy me:

 

[BTT1024]

I feel the same way - I hate vertex weight painting! Every time I use that tool, my character looks like it's had a bad accident. And that's why I also always hope it works without it.

About the controllers: Zoohead has made some very good post. Here for example the "Ultimate Human Rig".

Ultimate Human Rig

This rig has a user friendly design with elbow knee and foot control. Select a Pole Folder when the Transform Tool is active and you can rotate it around the IK vector. For individual Foot/Leg control the move the circle spline. For both feet, use the large square spline. To roll onto the...

www.cheetah3d.com

I simply adopted that at the beginning. If you have understood that so far, you can expand and rebuild it for your purposes.
With the eyes, I must unfortunately admit that I have also not yet solved so optimally. I am unsure myself what the best method is. Anyway, that's how my Marty rig looks at the moment.
View attachment 37861
But I will change it. Currently he has bones in the face, but that does not work well, so I will probably do it with morph sliders. As you may see, I'm not sure about the feet yet either... (I did the balls on the chest so he can breathe.) Also, I still often struggle with jumping/flipping joints. By now it mostly works well, but I still have problems with certain, more extreme movements.

Well, I will have to do a lot more work, because my Marty often doesn't do what I want. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose to annoy me:

View attachment 37862

Lydia,
Your Marty model looks really good. The rigging looks very complex. I had read ZooHead's "Ultimate Human Rig" thread a while back and felt a bit intimidated with all the rigging and controls. But, I went back and re-read it over the weekend and downloaded the .JAS file and started looking more closely and will spend time making sure I understand all of it... Your rig and ZooHead's look to be the best, professional way of rigging and controlling characters... So, I've gotta learn more... I'm settling back and not planning on rushing my bug animation and want to make it the one I apply better animation practices to...

For eye movement, I'm not sure the best way - But, back in September, I was playing around and testing with my Vic bug, using separate eyeball objects placed in the skeleton/joint hierarchy in the head joint area. Then set Target tags on the eyeball objects, pointing to the sphere I used for the eyeball tracking... My plan was to use the (not visible) sphere in the animation-movie shots to move the eyes when the bug looked at different objects, like if he was looking at the car, I'd key-frame move the ball to the position of the car so his eyes would slowly move to looking at the car....

Screenshot of my Eyeball setup (this eyeball testing was before I finished the whole skeleton-joint rig for the legs):

I did a test video of the eye tracking back in September and just posted the test video to youtube for you to see:

 

[Lydia]

Lydia,
Your Marty model looks really good. The rigging looks very complex. I had read ZooHead's "Ultimate Human Rig" thread a while back and felt a bit intimidated with all the rigging and controls. But, I went back and re-read it over the weekend and downloaded the .JAS file and started looking more closely and will spend time making sure I understand all of it... Your rig and ZooHead's look to be the best, professional way of rigging and controlling characters... So, I've gotta learn more... I'm settling back and not planning on rushing my bug animation and want to make it the one I apply better animation practices to...

For eye movement, I'm not sure the best way - But, back in September, I was playing around and testing with my Vic bug, using separate eyeball objects placed in the skeleton/joint hierarchy in the head joint area. Then set Target tags on the eyeball objects, pointing to the sphere I used for the eyeball tracking... My plan was to use the (not visible) sphere in the animation-movie shots to move the eyes when the bug looked at different objects, like if he was looking at the car, I'd key-frame move the ball to the position of the car so his eyes would slowly move to looking at the car....

Screenshot of my Eyeball setup (this eyeball testing was before I finished the whole skeleton-joint rig for the legs):
View attachment 37871

I did a test video of the eye tracking back in September and just posted the test video to youtube for you to see:

Yes, I think that makes sense, the way you did it with the eyes. I'm going to try that on my Marty too.
Now that Vic can look around, I think he's even more adorable.

 

[Helmut]

@BTT1024
* Controlling eyeballs with a target tab seems the most precise and flexible method. Automatically, you get the right angles for stereo vision at different distances and the correct focus if the eyes are following a moving target.
* For trickery, you can also deploy separate targets to achieve squints or specific cartoonish effects of rolling eyes or whatever.
* Of course, you can still animate the eye proper to show increases / decreases in the size of the pupils oops: as in shock, horror) and to animate the lids.
Fortunately, mammals are the only class of animals possessing complex facial muscles. However, animating the 42 or so facial muscles we humans use daily is a bit laborious and tedious.

 

[BTT1024]

@BTT1024
* Controlling eyeballs with a target tab seems the most precise and flexible method. Automatically, you get the right angles for stereo vision at different distances and the correct focus if the eyes are following a moving target.
* For trickery, you can also deploy separate targets to achieve squints or specific cartoonish effects of rolling eyes or whatever.
* Of course, you can still animate the eye proper to show increases / decreases in the size of the pupils oops: as in shock, horror) and to animate the lids.
Fortunately, mammals are the only class of animals possessing complex facial muscles. However, animating the 42 or so facial muscles we humans use daily is a bit laborious and tedious.

Helmut, Thank you for the additional tips for using the targets for eyeballs.

 

[BTT1024]

I originally started out with oblong /sort of Oval, cartoon-ish looking eyeballs for my Bug characters, but realized that I couldn't use an object with a target tag in that case - because the eyes wouldn't roll evenly like perfect spheres. So, I change my characters to have spherical eyeballs....

But, I was thinking that with oblong/oval, cartoon-ish eyeballs I guess there could be a way to adjust/animate the Eyeball UV position (or some UV parameter) to get the Pupils to move around, to appear to be looking at other objects... But, I don't thing there would be a way to use a tracker object to link to the UV position to get it to move. So, every UV position adjustment would have to be key-framed. Not sure how to do any of that, so I'll just stick with what I've got for now (and investigate more later).

 

[MonkeyT]

I haven't had much time to digest this, and I'm not sure I'm up on the details, but this is the first thought that popped into my head: Build a round eyeball, distort it using modifiers, and animate the eyeball rotations while the modifiers remain fixed within the head. Just a guess, could be worth an experiment.

 

[BTT1024]

I haven't had much time to digest this, and I'm not sure I'm up on the details, but this is the first thought that popped into my head: Build a round eyeball, distort it using modifiers, and animate the eyeball rotations while the modifiers remain fixed within the head. Just a guess, could be worth an experiment.

Monkey T,
I like your idea and will attempt to create it... In the mean time, I figured I take some time tonight, to create an example of what I was noting about moving the UV Texture on an oblong/oval eyeball...

I just posted an example (.JAS file attached in that thread) on the forum.

Here's the Link: https://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/index.php?threads/14076/#post-124163

@Lydia - Lydia, the post that I made, linked above, is another way I was thinking for eyeball movement for oblong/oval eyeballs. I finally took the time to try and make it work... The formula for the F-Curve Controller needs work, maybe I'll explore and try to get that better another night.

Brian T.

 

[BTT1024]

I haven't had much time to digest this, and I'm not sure I'm up on the details, but this is the first thought that popped into my head: Build a round eyeball, distort it using modifiers, and animate the eyeball rotations while the modifiers remain fixed within the head. Just a guess, could be worth an experiment.

MonkeyT,
I did a quick test using a Ball/sphere, which I made editable in order to apply color to the part where the pupil would be located. Then I added a Bulge modifier, centered and set to create an oblong eyeball as the resulting bulge. Then added a Target tag the the Ball/Sphere and recorded the ball movement, as seen in the animated GIF below... The result was that the resulting Bulge-Modified sphere (as oblong result) rotated on the Y axis, which would result in the eyeball poking out of the mesh when placed in the eye socket of a character...

So, at least they way I have it setup now, it wouldn't work. Maybe there's some way to keep the Bulge-Modified sphere (as oblong result) pinned so it wouldn't move, but allowing the source sphere/ball to rotate resulting in the pupil moving around the Bulge-Modified sphere (as oblong result)... Not sure how to do that.

Brian T.

 

[MonkeyT]

MonkeyT,
I did a quick placed in the eye socket of a character...
View attachment 37886

Brian T.

Not quite what I had in mind. The idea was to rotate the spherical eyeball but keep the modifiers fixed. It turns out it's possible, but not really easy because the modifiers are "inside" the hierarchy of the object itself instead of outside it. I got a working model by rotating the eyeball but manually "reversing" each eyeball rotation on the modifier. It's easiest when using orthogonal views to do it, but no easier than key framing everything, and would be difficult in an actual layout where the whole shebang needs to move - which doesn't solve your original problem.

Nice to see it working though.

 

[BTT1024]

Not quite what I had in mind. The idea was to rotate the spherical eyeball but keep the modifiers fixed. It turns out it's possible, but not really easy because the modifiers are "inside" the hierarchy of the object itself instead of outside it. I got a working model by rotating the eyeball but manually "reversing" each eyeball rotation on the modifier. It's easiest when using orthogonal views to do it, but no easier than key framing everything, and would be difficult in an actual layout where the whole shebang needs to move - which doesn't solve your original problem.

Nice to see it working though.

Monkey T,
Thank you for the clarification and the JAS example file... Your example works perfectly - I'll have to look into a way to use a Target Tag on both the Eyeball and the Modifier, But with a "reverse" on the rotation on the modifier. I think it may be possible, with the target tag, but might be complicated...

But, if I use the F-Curve Controller Tag script, I could use the formula in the F-Curve Controller Tag to reverse the modifier rotation related to the eyeball...

Over on the other thread I had posted, Frank Beckman made a recommendation for my UV method and provided a JAS file - the recommendation was for creating a better, more evenly distributed UV Image/Map so that I don't get distortion on the Pupils when the UV offset moves the UV image to more extreme positions... That recommendation makes sense... Frank's other example with the floating Pupil on the oblong eyeball, works well too - Also, it provides a raised pupil which may look better in animations...

ZooHead's example in that other thread, works well too...

Out of all of the examples, I think the UV Offset, with a better UV Map, works best and seems the easiest for me - But, I'll keep all examples in mind and in my "toolbox" as I may use (or switch to) one of the other methods in the future, or maybe use one of the methods for something else that requires similar movement with an oblong/oval object.

Brian T.

 

[Lydia]

Thank you for the clarification and the JAS example file... Your example works perfectly - I'll have to look into a way to use a Target Tag on both the Eyeball and the Modifier, But with a "reverse" on the rotation on the modifier. I think it may be possible, with the target tag, but might be complicated...

You'll probably use Frank's method, but if you also want to try MonkeyT's suggestion, it's not that complicated to keyframe/animate. I think the principle is simply that the mesh moves, not the UV. You can also do that with a joint and then target it, as planned.
(But there will be a slight distortion nevertheless. Maybe this small distortion is not so bad, because it makes the eye look more 3dimensional and the animation more alive.)

 

[misoversaturated]

Just found out that the target tag works with the transform modifier!
That allows for a very simple setup: 1.transmod with target for rotation + 2.transmod for shape elongation.

 

[MonkeyT]

But there will be a slight distortion nevertheless.

I considered that, and decided that, for a cartoonish style rather than naturalism, the pupil distortion might actually be an advantage.

 

[BTT1024]

You'll probably use Frank's method, but if you also want to try MonkeyT's suggestion, it's not that complicated to keyframe/animate. I think the principle is simply that the mesh moves, not the UV. You can also do that with a joint and then target it, as planned.
(But there will be a slight distortion nevertheless. Maybe this small distortion is not so bad, because it makes the eye look more 3dimensional and the animation more alive.)

View attachment 37899View attachment 37900

Lydia,
I looked at the sample JAS file that you posted and it works well. It is also less complicated than my UV Offset idea (using the F-Curve Controller script) - And it uses a Target ball for the eye movement which works well. Also, what you noted about the 3-dimensional appearance makes sense...

I'm going to keep the spherical eyeballs (and my Target tag ball method) for my Vic and Marty bugs because it took me a lot of time create them and I don't want to have to start over or edit the existing character mesh... I still have to create my Reggie bug, maybe I'll give him oblong eyeballs since he's going to have an elongated head (I'll do some mock-ups to see what looks best for the Reggie bug).

I'm now going to get back to looking at the Ultimate Rig example you provided, which ZooHead created, and work on implementing it for my Bugs.

I will keep your solution in my "toolbox".

Thank you,
Brian T.

 

[BTT1024]

Just found out that the target tag works with the transform modifier!
That allows for a very simple setup: 1.transmod with target for rotation + 2.transmod for shape elongation.

View attachment 37903

misoversaturated,
I also looked at the sample .JAS file you posted and your solution works well too and is better than my UV OffSet method for the same reasons as Lydia's example.

I will also keep your method in my "Toolbox".

Thank you,
Brian T.