Animating a mouth
 

I've recently constructed a head and added skelegons and converted them to bones in layout. I'm trying to animate a mouth and would like to know the best way of doing it. I have had some success, but one question I have is. I find I am moving several bones backwards and forwards to animate the mouth, I wondered if there was a way of linking a group of bones so I only have to move one item to move the same group of bones. Is that possible? Also, is there a tutorial anywhere about exactly the right way to add bones to a mouth?

:confused:

Hi, I'm not an animator, but would you not be better off setting up morphs and using morph mixer for animating the mouth? Bones sounds a little fiddly for such small movements,

Just my opinion, like I said, I'm no animator!!

Good luck :)

Definately use morphs instead of bones for this type of animation. If you feel compelled to use bones, work on your parenting or you could use the plugin called Follower.

Animating mouth
 

I forgot to mention, I'm fairly new to this stuff myself, you are probably right when you speak of using Morphs. Unfortunatly I don't know what they are, or how to use them yet. I'm still learning. Any clarification on this, appreciated.:bow:

I think I better do a bit of swotting up on this morph thingy!
:blush:

If you're using bones, you'll have no problem learning morphs, it's really quite simple (ish!) - All you need do is find a site which will show you the position of the mouth for the sounds of the letters of the words you're speaking, if that makes sense! - google images for 'mouth shapes' - there's a simple one up there. I believe the correct term to describe this is 'phonetics' - but don't quote me on that!

Then all you need do, is click on the 'M' symbol in the bottom right of Modeler, then from the drop down menu to the right, choose 'new' and name the new morph as one of those phonetics, for example 'Morph_ah'.

Now simpley modify the geometry of the mouth to match the shape for the sound you want to make. - continue to do this for all the sounds or phonetics, then save and send to layout.

once in layout go to the object properties for the model, and under the deform tab, choose 'morph mixer' from the displacement drop down menu. Double click it to display all the morphs associated with your model, you can now move the timeline and the sliders in the morph mixer over time and animate your mouth speaking!!

Job done - bit of a rough and ready description, but hope it helps :)

IMHO - Jonny Gorden has a two volume book called Cartoon Character Creation by Wordware that is by far the most informative books on what you need to know. It includes everything from what morphs you need to how to create them. So if you're interested in animation, I would call this the animators bible. It is very intense, but he does a good job of walking you through the many steps to create and animate a character. it includes files and scenes to help you too. It uses Lightwave eight and there is a plugin that won't work in version nine (for me), but the concepts are sound and I think you will walk away with a solid understanding of animation.

:beer:

Animating a mouth
 

Thanks to b3ta for that informative help, and to rwhunt99 for pointing me in the right direction book wise. I just bought a book by Jason Osipa titled 'Stop Staring' it also has some good background knowledge but unfortunatly its more geared towards Maya. I shall certainly look out for 'Cartoon Character Creation '.

One quick question conscerning the book, does it apply to LW version 7 as well?

Right, I'm off to check out b3ta informative guidance.

Many thanks.

:beer:

Actually, it was made with v8 in mind; however,the concepts are sound and while I am only familiar with version 7.5+ I think it should still work. If you have skelegons in your version it should still work. He deals with building rigs in layout using the bone tools in the newer v8.0, but you don't have to. in the first book, he builds a simple alien cartoon character in LW by using the skelegons in modeler, while he builds a rig in Layout using the new bone tools for a more advanced character. You can still build the rig in modeler just as easily with skelegons. I like it because he explains the reasons why he does the things the way he does and doesn't just say do this and that and you're done with no knowledge of why he did it that way.

I have read the reviews about the other book you mentioned and it seems to be a good book also.

;)
Also concerning your first question about linking bones to make it simpler, yes by parenting them in a hierarchy then you can use either FK or IK - however, using morphs for facial animation is the best way to go for a simple head

Mouth animation
 

Thanks RW, you must forgive my ignorance on this subject. As I say, I'm new to this and have a lot to learn. One final question on the subject, well a small problem. I've been trying morphing and quickly built a test ball with a mouth as an experiment. I saved 3 different mouth shapes in modeler as, ooh, aah, and ee. loaded them into layout and activated the morph mixer. I am able to morph the mouth, but I can also see the other mouth shapes as well. so I am left with for example, a mouth saying ooh, is also showing the aah, position, and the ee. Surely not all the positions should be visible at once. I am obviously missing something here. How do I make just the mouth position I want visible, and the others invisible?

Thanks.:bow:

I'm not sure what you've already done.

When you make a morph, you should always be sure you start at the base. Then you click on new morph to create the next. If you don't, you are adding to the previous morph.

In layout after adding the morph mixer; you should have three sliders, one for each of the morphs you made. You will see a "K" at the right of the sliders. Click this to set a keyframe. Make it a habit to set a Keyframe for each time you maka a change. That includes closing the mouth back to normal.

The morph mixer allows you to mix several morphs at the same time, this is why you want to do each morph separatley.

I hope this helps you out ;)

animating a mouth
 

I found out where I was going wrong. Many thanks RW,
for your help.:attn:

Thanks
 

P.S Thanks to all who replied to my thread.:beer:

I am glad to have helped, that is why I l love these forums. I have been helped many times myself. :p

morphs is a very powerful tool, you can create great UV maps with it aswell

I personally would use morphs in conjunction with a jaw bone, just to give it more control. Depending on your needs for the mouth animation, in most cases just morphing will suffice.