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Author Topic: I need an animated mouth.  (Read 20067 times)

grepico

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I need an animated mouth.
« on: January 04, 2008, 12:53:16 pm »
OK got a good toon and I want to add an animated mouth (Google image search for "Reddy Kilowatt", that's the guy).  His head is a perfect sphere and he has a "cartoonie" mouth.  How do I add the mouth, I've tried manually manipulating points and faces of the sphere but that seems to always end in disaster.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

grepico
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kreator

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2008, 04:40:48 pm »
You want to morph the mouth, read the manual on morphing to manipulate the points with morphs
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hihosilver

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2008, 05:17:10 pm »
You're going to want to use morph targets as Kreator suggested, in combination with Phonemes.  Phonemes are basically the smallest sound type you can make.  For different sounds, there is a different mouth shape.  Here's a great example of phonemes you can use as a reference:

Good luck!
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grepico

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2008, 06:49:09 pm »
Thanks guys, but I think you're way ahead of me.  I need to know how to actually create the mouth, right now I have a sphere for a head and it's perfectly smooth where the mouth is supposed to be.  I've only been at this for about a week so I'm sorry to be askin such noob questions, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thx
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kreator

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2008, 07:14:23 pm »
Haha well yeah that is a noob question! sorry grepico... you need to go into point edit mode if you want to cut your sphere up!... what level have u got to?  are u still using tubes spheres etc to make objects, characters? perhaps you could post a pic ... did`nt u ask questions on Multiboning?

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grepico

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2008, 01:56:12 pm »
Yes, I used tubes and spheres to create this guy, I've seen the tuts on manually creating stuff using reference images but this toon seemed so basic I didn't see the need to do that.  I tried manipulating the points on his head to create a mouth but I wasn't having much luck, (I'm sure it's because of my inexperience).

Here's a pic of him with a hole cut out where his mouth should be.

Edit: Kreator, the mouth you have on the snowmen in the Merry Christmas ani is exactly what I'm looking for, how did you do that?




« Last Edit: January 06, 2008, 03:08:19 pm by grepico »
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kreator

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2008, 11:38:13 am »
My snowmen have been morphed ! justa case of moving points to create the morphs then edit in timeline
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grepico

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2008, 12:15:17 pm »
If I define the morphs and then subdivide, will the morphs still work?

Is there an easy way to adjust an object that's been subdivided, I find that with so many points it's nearly impossible to adjust the mouth without screwing up the whole head.

Thanks
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kreator

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2008, 05:10:24 pm »
don`t subdivide it theres no need to ... I am gonna write a tut for morphing on Animanon ... u can get a test mouth from there and follows tut when I have posted it , but like all things these don`t happen over night... perhaps you might find the Skype thing useful I posted at animanon as well
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hihosilver

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2008, 12:06:53 am »
grepico, it sounds to me like you're using the "Build>Subdivide Faces..." command.  DO NOT USE THIS FOR SUBDIVISION.  This tool is mainly to split a face up for further manipulation.  Only use it if you really need it.  If you want the object smoother, use "Build>Convert to Subdivided".  Using this smooths your object, but keeps the base mesh for manipulation.  It basically adds points in between.  If you want the base mesh back, you can simple double click the subdivision object and change 'working' to 0.  Then you can convert back to mesh and you will have the base mesh again.
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kreator

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Re: I need an animated mouth.
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2008, 10:05:40 am »
Grepico... I`ve finished the tut on this ...should keep you amused on http://animanon.xtreemhost.com ...Tutorial forum
any more questions leave me a note on that forum .. as I`m there most of the time now... just quick excursions to other boards!
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