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[Raxx]

Bust-a-Move

No, no, not the video game! Our goal is to create a moving bust using morph targets and/or skeletal animation. The bust must be of a popular organic fictional or non-fictional character.

Define "Move"
You must move at least 2 parts of the head (jaw/tongue/lips/eyeballs/eyelids/ears/head/neck) in no less than 5 seconds. You can move those parts however you want, but the better the animation the better your chance of getting the vote will be!

How realistic?
To keep the playing grounds fair, all objects including the bust and any props you need must be clay- or stone-rendered. You can give them a stone-type texture or keep it smooth-clay (of any color). The point is for the viewer to observe the deformations and structure of the mesh, and how well it's animated.

Deadline
Post a youtube link with/without audio by Monday, October 12th

Final Note
Well, this is a little complicated, but it introduces morph targets, skeletal animation, and proper organic modeling/loops. Be sure to check out these links if you're unsure of anything!

Eyeball Tutorial (includes morphing)
Anim8or Manual
Tutorials relating to subdivision modeling and edge flow

Winner!

Congratulations goes to Dreadkb for winning this challenge!

Forum Topic | youtube.com/watch?v=B8H7uGvoLiE[/youtube]]Final Entry

[3D Joe Wiltshire]

Wow, I can see this being an interesting and freakishly creepy challenge. I won't even try to take part in this one, unless I find a spare month to spend some time learning edge loops and eyeballs. :/

[kreator]

Yeah then another month to morph it, rig it and then a couple of years to render it Haha!!

[Pincho]

Looks hard. I've never done morphing before, don't know what edge looping is. I'll see what I can do with bones, and a couple of hexagons.

[Raxx]

Open your mind up a little and experiment, there are hundreds of different ways you can do this. The bust could be of Bart Simpson rolling his eyes and burping, Elvis Presley smirking, Barack Obama yapping, or Daffy Duck nodding his head and looking side to side. Whatever.

I mentioned edge loops but all you have to do is make it so that the mesh serves its function as you need it to. We're voting on how it looks in the end so who cares if you cheat a little with the mesh if the deformations look fine?

And Kreator, clay/stone renders don't require ART. Which makes for just a night's worth of rendering at the most for most setups, if that. Clay/stone renders also don't require tons of details. An eyeball could just be a sphere with a dent in it. That's how the picture above looks like, right?

There are a lot of easy characters you can work with, Pincho. Also, morphing is actually a little easier than skeletal animation when it comes to getting what you want. Use bones for the eyes, head/neck, then use morphs for the lips and eyelids/brows. If you're afraid of morphs, then just use bones for the eyes and head/neck, and even the jaw and that's all! You only have to animate two parts of the head.

[drayeon]

What do you consider popular? I was thinking of doing something from a video game. If video games wouldn't be considered popular enough then I'll probably go for Emperor Palpentine from Star wars. After he turned all evil looking.

[Dreadkb]

The bust must be of a popular organic fictional or non-fictional character.

How exactly would you define organic? I have tried organic a number of times but find I am much better at inorganic. I'm just wondering if there is a happy middle where I look at it and say "inorganic" and you look at it and say "organic".

[hihosilver]

I'm going to do a nice and simple character, Johnny Bravo!  I have the sound clip and all, should be fun!

[Jehovahenker]

The bust must be of a popular organic fictional or non-fictional character.

How exactly would you define organic? I have tried organic a number of times but find I am much better at inorganic. I'm just wondering if there is a happy middle where I look at it and say "inorganic" and you look at it and say "organic".

Probably animals or plantlike things....

Another question for be; What about the 'populair'..---> must it be a well known character?

[Raxx]

Good question, what is popular? Basically any public character not privately known, and usually known outside of your own local region. Your sister, town mayor, local band member, or even yourself would not fit the role, but video game characters, actors in cinema, cartoons, and national icons would be allowed. You can even do a character from a book.

What is organic? Just ask what is not organic? Rocks, robots, etc. In the Anim8or sense, an organic character is going to be anything that you have to apply actual skinning to when doing skeletal animation versus just attaching separate body parts to separate bones and rotating those. The body parts are each connected by skin or substance versus being in separate parts attached by hinges and screws. So you can't do a megaman character who's jaw is attached by a hinge and neck is just interleaved metal parts. You'd have to do a megaman character who's face is actually malleable like megaman himself (if you wanted to do a megaman character), where the only way to animate him is by using Anim8or's skinning feature. Just use a little common sense and just ask if a character's allowed if you're unsure yourself. No harm in it.

Naturally eyeballs and props (if you use them) don't have to be skinned.

Johnny Bravo would work just fine, I loved watching that show

[Jehovahenker]

Let me reserve a worms character

[Pincho]

I know who I am doing.

[Pincho]

I am trying out the Morph thing. I made a round ball. I made a new morph target and flattened the ball. then I put morph targets none. Then I went to scene editor, and added the ball, and it was round. then I looked for the flat version, but couldn't find it anywhere. So how do I go from round to flat?

I read the manual, and a few threads, but nothing mentioned what to do in the scene editor.

EDIT: OK I found out how to make a bouncing, flattening ball. It's very easy. Now I can make my face animation.

[Raxx]

Easiest way to introduce you to it...

Open the Graph Editor and expand the Scene's Timeline. Click on your object with the morphs. You should see your morphs in the Graph Editor underneath the name of the object you selected, and if you expand the object in the Scene's Timeline then you should see the morphs there as well.

Then double click either on the frame you want in the Timeline for that morph, or select the frame and double click it in the Graph Editor, or just double click it in the Graph Editor and type in the number of the frame you want in the "Key Value Editor" dialogue that comes up. Either way it'll allow you to press the "Add Key" button to add the key you want where you want in the Timeline. Then set the value to "1" and press Ok, and that sets it 100% morphed by the time the animation goes to the key. Set to "0" anywhere else and the morph goes back to its original form from that current morph. You can set values in between, or even more than "1" if you want Anim8or to keep those vertices going in the same direction even further than you originally set the morph.

[Pincho]

Thanks! Luckily I figured it out, and got a bouncing, flattening ball. I am pleased with this compo for teaching me something new.