eye animation

(sozz7) #1

hi all,

right basicaly I’m doing research into eye animation, to be precise animating pupils in a way that expresses a character’s emotions, thoughts, physical effort etc, im looking to make a guide for anyone who wants to make more expressive pupils.

what i need though is feedback on this from anyone who makes characters, i need to find a way of making my results useful for 3d animation.

i need to consider the software limitations also.

would be cool if people can reply with a few different techniques that they use for animating eyes, and facial expressions, even post some guides which you have used your selves.

ok, any help with this will be greatly appreciated, and i will post my finished research paper on here.

cheers, sam.

(EB) #2

You could try switching shaders back and forth to mimic a vertices animation. That would be my first idea since vertex changes would be timely and your texture/shader file would have to compensate for the size changes anyways. Is this along your path of thought ?

What software are you using and how exactly are you approaching this situation ?

(sozz7) #3

the idea is to get a few peoples opinions so that i can make a tutorial which could be applied to different software, and different types of animation,

so i am trying to get some understanding of how different people work, how they produce their characters, so i can keep this in mind as i research eye behavior

thanks for your reply

(carnage) #4

honestly i think you are wasting your time.

in a single player game when the player can be forced to look at a character then the few pixes that show the eyes you could squeez and expresion in

im ET players have better things to do than look at other players faces

(sozz7) #5

i hear what your saying, but with the continual improvment of graphics and hardware it will happen… maybe i will concentrate on animated film for now

(Ifurita) #6

Or even for single player games (e.g., RTCW) where facial expressions and all, really add to the immersion of a game

(Nail) #7

I’m not sure if I want to play a game where pupil dilation is something I have to watch for, especially in a first person shooter, damn, I’m way to old for that
:lol:

(sozz7) #8

hehe, you wouldnt really look for it, is more of a subconcious thing, ive gotta do a few tests yet, to see if dilating animated pupils will make any difference at all

(No1_sonuk) #9

As Carnage said, in most instances, the display resolution won’t be hight enough to tell the difference unless you’re very close.
Can someone look at the ET skins to see how many pixels the eyes cover - I’m away from home at the mo.
That should give a better indication of the issue.

(Gimpsta) #10

May be of some interest to you …

http://www.3q.com/news_article.asp?ID=226

(carnage) #11

maby way off in the future where all conections will be so fast that all servers will be teamskeep and monitor resolutions consider 100000 x 120000 to be low and graphics are so good they are real then this technology may have a place in games

(gota admit it would be cool seening characters mouths move to the exact paterns of the user mic input)

but untill then ill dream

(EB) #12

Carnage, those days are closer than you think. Except for the resolutions.

(carnage) #13

good point EB
computer technolagy has always developed faster, and although it seems like ages fore the next gen graphics to come out was it something like 10 years ago we were playing alex the kid?

(Jaquboss) #14

eyes are integrated in head models as new surface ( that means they are models in head model and using their own skin)
animating is same like for head model…

(sozz7) #15

Cheers to everyone for your feedback