Saturday Morning Tutorials: 360 Head Part 3

A little belated, but it is still Saturday:

This is more or less the last part of my Tutorial on how to make an expressive rotatable head.

I'll go more in-depth on controls and animation process in the weeks ahead. Please refer to previous tuts concerning track mattes and hooking up expressions to controllers - In the interest of keeping these short I'm not repeating myself.

The parts are a face plate, nose, bangs, hair, and a buckle - some bit of hair that connects with the bangs in front and the hair at the back of the head. It is not necessary to color or texture the hair, maybe tint them differently to know which is which when adjusting, but the only thing that is important is their shape.

The pieces are simple, but must be designed with some care. However the process is not at all mysterious just expect to go in and out of After Effects until you achieve the desired effect. This is also true when it comes to displacement maps (we'll get to those later).

First be sure to duplicate your eye comps from the last tutorial.  Be sure to flip and rewire it, so it works like the original, but separate from it. You will then have both the left and right eye. 

Make a composition for the head and place all your parts inside. Select the parts pertaining to the face and pre-compose them. Example: (face, nose, eye_lt, eye_rt, and mouth) 

Simply arrange your face how you'd like it to be. After that it is time to go back to the head layer to apply FreeForm to the parts of the head.  Be sure to have your displacement maps in the same composition with its visibility turned off.  If you made your displacement map in the same comp within After Effects be sure to pre-compose it (explained further below).

Here's a short run down of FreeForm's attributes:

You can make domes, half-domes, and saddles easily enough with displacement maps. Don't try making a sphere with FreeForm. Now what in tarnation is a displacement map? You may be wondering - well they look generally like this:

There is only one rule: white advances, black recedes.

If you get tired of going back and forth from Photoshop like me you can make a map within after effects. Just be sure to pre-comp it so FreeForm can read it as a flat image. With this knowledge you can also make waving flags and turbulent surfaces.

Once you think you understand the above you get this:

Our last problem is how to overcome FreeForm layer stacking issue. FreeForm still obeys the layer stack of your composition. Unlike After Effects' default 3D layers that can obscure other layers no matter the layer order. Freeform does not recognize other layers with FreeForm on it. Now how do we solve this pesky layering problem within FreeForm?

Simply upload a small PNG file with nothing on it save for 100% glorious transparency.

Place it in the head composition and reference it in FreeForm's backside controls. There the ugly unwanted backside is gone!

If you happen to want a bit of the backside wrapping around the face just duplicate - the bangs for instance and put it behind the face.

The last step is inserting a few flat gradient layers. Make them into alpha mattes and the hair should blend seamlessly together. Doing this will also reduce how flat the character looks.

There isn't a real cut and dry step by step theory of getting this right - only through patience and perseverance can you get this working. These tips should guide you in the right direction.

Till next time!

Head Tutorial:
Nimbus Link: First Post
360 Head Tutorial Part 1: Design
360 Head Tutorial Part 2: Eyes and Mouth
360 Head Tutorial Part 3: The Head

360 Head Tutorial Part 1: Design

This is Part 1 of my massive After Effects Tutorial on how to make an expressive rotatable head. In this section I'm going to discus the design of the character, the madness, and the method.

 When I designed my character I really just wanted him to have more expressive range than the norm.  Especially from what we're accustomed to is wooden performances that are not too dissimilar from Clutch Cargo. I wanted to imitate the squash and stretch in the film Twice Upon a Time.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmcX_OX1VzA

Now I was in some ways pretty utilitarian in my design going so far as ditching 5 designs during production. If it didn't look good or convincing or if it wasn't functioning like I imagined it - I tossed it.

Form pretty much followed function in the end.

Now first off it should be simple. It is not impossible to construct a wrinkly jacked up monster with giant cysts for eyes it is just strongly inadvisable. After Effects is a nitch program while it can do a few things real well it is no substitute for your standard modeling package. Especially if your going to turn and do a 360 rotation.

With that said you can deviate from what I've done, however simplicity is key. The rules are simple:

• Use shapes that have horizontal symmetry for the head. A triangle becomes a cone, a circle a sphere etc...  This is important if you intend to connect it to a neck and not have the head rock back and forth.

• Use the same color to hide seams and blend objects into a cohesive unit.

• While it is possible to give the character a ponytail keep hair simple in fact the easiest head you could make is a bald one - and I don't even think you need Freeform for that one.

Ears have a similar process to ponytails. I'll probably discuss how to go about these extras last as they are further down the comp stream.

Now to cover some deficiencies of this method:

This chart shows where my original rig visually breaks - the red line in back represents the falloff. If rotated just by its Y axis the head will never break it is completely stable with some give in the X axis before -25.  There is a lot more leeway for him to look down because I was considering story. The story being all about fear of heights, so he has to look down eventually. The red line does come to a point somewhere below - where it becomes evident that the bangs and the back of the head are separate features.

The other possible deficiency is render time, which is a silent killer if not dealt with early. The bulk of this problem comes from Freeform and how many subdivisions it creates under the quality tab.  However this render problem only really arises once you start using the puppet pin tool. Which lets face it has its issues (we'll save that for another tutorial).   

Speaking of render issues it is preferable to animate within After Effects at a low resolution.

I think this covers the basic design aspects of this process. In the next tutorial we'll take a look at the mouth and eyes.

Head Tutorial:
Nimbus Link: First Post
360 Head Tutorial Part 1: Design
360 Head Tutorial Part 2: Eyes and Mouth
360 Head Tutorial Part 3: The Head