Deformation on lower jaw rig

[hidalgo]

Hey,

i have a question regarding rigging, i am trying to rig my character in order to have a lips controller and a jaw controller that works dynamically as in this example



the idea is that i can seal the lips and keep them sealed no matter what animation i apply and for the jaw having the chance to create a dynamic jaw which could collide with the upper lips and upper face without compenetrating, anybody could give some advice as i think ice could make that working pretty well..

thank you

[hidalgo]

no one knows how to recreate a similar rig in xsi? i can't believe that xsi artists are not able to make the tasks that maya artists do...honestly...

[Sil3]

What you are after is known as "Sticky Lips".

I never saw anything like it for Softimage except on a few videos on 1 or 2 rigs, but the knowledge was never let out.

The new Gear release has something that can mimic that effect, its the new Curves tools, search this site that there's a video showing what it can do. I haven't tested it yet but as soon as Ill have some free time I want to get into it.

[EricTRocks]

Nothing too fancy about how to set it up. Just a lot of work.

You have nulls along the upper lip and lower lip. The same number on top and bottom. Then you have another set of the same number that is constrained 50% between them. Those are your target nulls.

Then you have another duplicate set of the lower lip ones that blends between the first lower lip set, and the target nulls. Same for the top.

That's the easy part. The hard part is that rig that you showed is blend shape based and you have to jump through a few hoops to get the blend shapes to blend properly with the controls.

One reference you may be able to pull apart is the Malcolm rig from AnimSchool that uses this method.

======================= Edit =======================
I stand corrected, it's a joint based setup. Read the comments on the vimeo page.

[hidalgo]

thats an amazing exercise of "theory" but i would need something more "practic" i know how to setup a rig and constraint, but this is a bit more of an excercise....so i need more practical examples if possible.

actually i am not speaking about sticky lips only, but on the possibility to have nulls to follow a geometry to allow for strech and squashed effects...

[EricTRocks]

Have you seen the "Dorito" setup by Steven Caron?

http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/209
https://vimeo.com/68359879

[Sil3]

actually i am not speaking about sticky lips only, but on the possibility to have nulls to follow a geometry to allow for strech and squashed effects...

You mean the "Dorritos" technique?

I made this video some 2 years ago to show to someone that was having issues with it and couldn't make it work, so it has all the steps on it. Also at the time I had just learned (tks to someone on the mailing list) how to make the Controls that follow the mesh having its Local axes aligned which didn't happened on the original shown version of this technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US6RXDOoYHs

Video has a black part at the end, I forgot to edit it out but everything is shown. Its a very simple technique actually, in Maya you need scripts to do it.


ps: ups Eric beat me to it.

[hidalgo]

Thank you guys, i actually saw the dorritos video and i have found it back then really cool, i have not being totally clear and i am sorry.

What i meant in my request is that if you check carefully the jaw area and lips of the video reference, the overall look of the face is of a generally speaking "elastic" feel, given by some squash and stretch properties that enable for example the lips to collide and not compenetrate once the jaw its squashed in.. you can see what i am talking about almost at the beginning of the video..

then second request was about the fact that something control the lips that in the video can be closed keeping the lips closed no matter what the jaw bone do.
hope i am more clearer now.

Thank you again for the help

[Sil3]

What i meant in my request is that if you check carefully the jaw area and lips of the video reference, the overall look of the face is of a generally speaking "elastic" feel, given by some squash and stretch properties that enable for example the lips to collide and not compenetrate once the jaw its squashed in.. you can see what i am talking about almost at the beginning of the video..

That super easy to do, a simple Link With will do it. When the Lower Jaw rotates up past its Default position the Upper Lips go Up as well. You just need to have an Upper Jaw Bone that don't exist in reality but its very handy to have so we can move the skull to certain Poses.

then second request was about the fact that something control the lips that in the video can be closed keeping the lips closed no matter what the jaw bone do.
hope i am more clearer now.

Thank you again for the help

Thats the Sticky Lips we were talking earlier.

Do a search for Sticky Lips tutorials, they are all Maya but you will get the idea behind them, they are a LOT of work and I could never replicate them in Softimage, but im not a TD so some things escaped me. I will try it again as soon as I have the time.

From my mind what I remember is that you need to have 3 curves one for each lip (Up and Lower) and the Middle of the Lips Curve those curves are Enveloped like the Head and then the Nulls are constrained to those curves, you make those curves with the same amount of points that your Lip region have. The Middle curve and Nulls are the ones that the other will stick to and since that Curve is Enveloped/Latticed etc like the Head no when you Stick the Lips to those nulls they will always follow. Its a bit complex I really suggest to see a Tutorial to really take a grasp of it and even then its not easy... if it was i had already done it ahahaha

Take a read and have fun :

http://wiki.animationsinstitut.de/doku. ... set:sticky

[hidalgo]

Thank you Sil3 for the tip, so for the upper face you think that only a bone linked with the jaw bone could work for the deformation? i will try that now

About the sticky lips i have made a compound in ice, but that one seems not yet working properly ( specifically considering that now sticks the lips on both closing and opening which is incorrect)i would be more then happy to share it if someone would be willing to give it a watch and find what is not working...

trough the dorritos system now i got the mesh to behave properly, but i am encounter a problem, now for example i can have 3 controllers on the eyebrows, but if i want to have them to work indipendently, and all togheter with a larger control that can raise and lower all the three simultanously i can't cause the controller are already parented to the nulls which are cluster constrained to the mesh, how can fix that?

[csaez]

...cause the controller are already parented to the nulls which are cluster constrained to the mesh, how can fix that?

The static kinestate has to point to the global kinematics of the object that represents the dynamic 'binding pose', but it can be anywhere in the hierarchy! (not necessarily the parent).

[hidalgo]

i guess i am doing something wrong then, cause if i take the controller with the static kine state and parent them to the "group" controller they go out of theyre original position and screw the mesh...

[csaez]

You can parent a ref null to the constrained one and use that as target for the static kinestate, that way you should be able to tweak the binding pose

[hidalgo]

actually i did something different, i have taken the nulls with the kine state and parent them directly to the group null copy/pasting theyre original position into the new group (cause they where switching to the zero point of the newly group) they keep they're original position that way... thank you for the tip