Eyes don't work with HeadTurn

[OM26R]

Hi.

My character has frontal, left and right quarters. The frontal view has only 1 stage, right and left quarters has 2 stages via Cycle layers behavior for the smooth transition.  I implemented the Head turn behavior to Head layer. And I've got 2 problems:

1. On the frontal view, head rotating doesn't work, I mean, it's impossible to lean the head toward the shoulder but It works on the left and right quarters.

2. Eyebrows, eye pupils, and eyelid don't work on right and left quarter. I've checked every single layer, and they have their own tags, so I can say they are rigged 100% correct. The only mouth work correct in every view.

What's the problem and how can I fix that? I'm using CH 1.5. Thanks

[OM26R]

I found the solution for 2nd problem, I was needed to add Face and Eye Gaze behavior for every 2nd stage (layer in Cycle) for right and left quarter. So far it works fine, but still can't find the solution for the 1st issue.

[alank99101739]

Great that you are making progress. For others to help you, typically you need to provide more information such as the puppet structure, or share the puppet itself.

If you want some random suggestions without further details, I would duplicate the puppet and delete all the head positions except the frontal one. (Then double check the original puppet is still in tact!). That is, delete the actual layers in the puppet. Then see if its still not working (probably won’t be.) Remove the head turner. If still not working you have eliminated that as the problem. The reason I am suggesting this is to make sure there is no “carry over” from over head positions on the frontal view - you can now be sure it is something in the front view causing the problem.

So then I would check again for draggers, handles, tags again knowing if has nothing to do with head turns. If you got the other head positions working, you probably arlready know what to do here. There must be something different about that perspective.  But if you can find nothing, that is why I suggest removing the other views just to make sure its not something you did not expect stopping the movement.

For example, without seeing your artwork, some puppets I have seen have the head stick out more to the left and right. If the frontal view has the mesh wrong and is including the other head views, it might be more “fixed’.

But what would help the most is to just post some screen shots of the puppet hierarchy, meshes, etc - I am just shooting in the dark in case it helps. Its normally something silly like a tag in the wrong place (e.g. head tag as used by the camera).

Oh, another quick thing to try is to put a dragger on the top of the head and trying to drag it - what happens? Do you get some strange distortion? That might help Identify the source as well.

[OM26R]

Alan, thx for the reply. Probably I found the issue source - that happened because of that circle, don't know the exact title of it, I think devs call it "origin", I don't know what exact that thing does but as I found it's like the main bone or pivot point for character part. So that circle ( 2018-04-27_17-07-16.png — Yandex.Disk  arrow points at it) was below the mouth (just about at the top of the neck) and when I moved that to eyes level head leans started to work.

Can you prompt me where is the exact, the 100% efficient place for that circle should be?

Thx a lot

[alank99101739]

Layers have an origin - it is like the “center” of the layer. If you have an independent layer and do a rotation, it rotates around the origin. If you have an arm as an independent layer, it defines the point the layer connects to the body (typically the main puppets shoulder). It defaults to the center of the layer, which is not always correct.

I don’t use head turning personally (never got around to it - plus I cannot draw my puppet twice and make it look the same! Not a very good artist yet! ;-), so there may be errors in the following.  One decision you need to make is whether you want the head dependent or independent Compared to the rest of the body. If dependent, to tilt the head, the neck and shoulders will bend etc. (unless you use pins to minimize movement Say of the shoulders).  If you want the head to hinge/rotate without stretching the body, then you would make the head independent. You may draw the neck as part of the main body going up behind the head, then drag the origin of the head layer over the neck. That would define how the head pivots relative to the rest of the body.

So what would be good to see is an expanded puppet hierarchy screenshot, so people here can see which are dependent/independent (indicated by the little crown) and understand the puppet hierarchy.

I hope that makes sense or gives you a few clues. I gotta run to work just now, but will try to check in later

[alank99101739]

Very sorry, just noticed the link to the screenshot!  So normally you would drag the origin of “Frontal” to over the neck. The origin should turn green indicating attachment. That becomes the pivot point of the head relative to the body. If you want it pivoting higher, you make the neck behind the head taller so it can overlap correctly.

[alank99101739]

What is confusing me however is it sounds like what I am suggesting is closer to where you started at and said was not working. I am trying to think (without a computer) the difference between the origin of Head (which is dependent in your puppet) and Frontal (which is independent).  Normally you want the attach type to be “auto” (rather than the parent layer name which was the default by mistake in a previous release). That is, “Frontal” has a property. When you set it to “Auto” on an independent layer, you then drag the dotted origin circle over part of the parent to “attach” it at that point - it turns green when it is attached. That becomes how it hinges to the main body. What you may have done is created the Frontal layer to be independent and not attached to the body, so if the body moves the head won’t move with it. So solved one problem (head now tilts), but created another problem (not attached to body).

Oh, there is also a head tilt strength property of the Face behavior - you might want to fiddle with some of those values.

If you do want the joint higher on the head (because that is the look you are after), as above I would suggest making the neck taller. That will allow you to attach the head at a higher position.

Either that or I have got things broken in my mind - e.g. I cannot remember the relationship between the Head layer origin and the Frontal. I guess I should stop typing until I get back in front of a computer so can test things..... Nah! Where is the SEND button!  😉