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no matter how I pose the EyeAimer bone, or the eyetarget nulls, i can't get his left iris any farther left than that. And I'd probably have the same problem on the other side if were going right.

I use the Master eye target to get better range of motion - the eye aimer bone is usually pretty restrictive.

EDIT: I take that back. In the Tinman it doesn't seem like there is much of a difference in range

The eye aimer bone is smartskinned to the eye target. That relationship needs to be edited.

I know because I just got done watching the face rig tutorials that I want to apply to Gumbo

On Tinman there's an euler limit on the eyes in the "Animation_Controls/FACE Interface/EyeConstraints (do not touch)" Pose...I edited it in all versions of the Tinman to give it more movement and just updated them. If more movement on the 'Y' axis is needed, then the Smartskin would have to be edited.

Hope that helps, Robert.

thanks



What is smartskin doing when the eye is rotating?

I believe it is interpolating the eyes' target to the eyes aimer bone. The aimer bone sometimes has a limit to its rotation which may not be enough for the eye targets to rotate the eyes to the desired angle. So, by moving the eye target further than the aimer when editing the relationships, it is basically doing what smartskinning does when you move CPs to bone movement.

:::I think:::

The SmartSkin is what moves the "EyeTarget" (which is the center target that is not the "Master_EyeTarget) when the "EyeAimerBone" is rotated. The "EyeTarget" controls the left and right eye nulls, which is what the eye bones are aiming at. As Dhar said, there are euler limits that can be set to limit the eye rotation as well.

In the majority of situations, the "EyeAimerBone" SmartSkin won't need to be messed with, but there are times that it is necessary. Mark Strohbehn's FACE video tutorials (which Dhar also mentioned) show how to edit it, they are linked on the Wiki page that is in my signature.

You've covered a lot of ground rigging Gumbo, Dhar...it's very good to see.

Hope that helps, Robert.

Why was smartskin needed to make the eye targets move? It seems you could just translate/orient constrain them to the eye aimer bone and it would move them around just fine, no? You could point the eyes anywhere that way.

And that way the eye aimer bone would less of an abstraction of the actual result.

It could be done a lot of ways, that was the way Mark Strohbehn chose. Things get changed as a need arises and time permits, Mark Skodacek and I are constantly going over different sections of the rig and tweaking/re-assessing things (it's steadily improving as a result)...it just hasn't come up yet, so I haven't given it much thought. I'm in the middle of updating the installation method of the bones rig for the face (then I've got a spine update I want to work on), I'll give the eye controls some thought while I'm at it.

One thing the eye aimer cannot do is bring the eyes closer together in situations where they're looking at an object that is very close to the face (cross eyed). I think it is good that we have a choice between aimer and target.

I could add that ability to the "EyeAimerBone"...put a SmartSkin or Expression on the 'Z' rotation to bring the eyes in or out...I'll add that to my to-do list. Thanks, Dhar.

One reason I see for using smartskin for the eye targets is that, when rotating the eye aimer bone, the null targets do not rotate around the the head. It eleminates the need to add a translate limit to the eye targets. For the most part, you are using them within the face interface, but this will cross the eyes when looking out the corners of the eyes, but probably not that noticable (looking at the eye targets at an angle brings them closer together).

Hi... a little bit offtopic but:
Are that 2d-notes? Or is that 3d-text?

If it is a 2d-note... how did you do it?

I'm with Robert here. I always found the relationship between the EyeAimerBone and the eye direction to be arbitrary. I mean, the relationship seems different between characters. Beside, aiming the EyeAimerBone at a particular object will usually not aim the eyes themselve at that object. For that reason, I rarely use the EyeAimerBone except for producing a facial expression. Otherwise, I use the Master_EyeTarget. I always wondered why, the eyes were not simply constrained to the EyeAimingBone with a simple Orient Like constraint.

I'd prefer not to have limits on things like face controls.

I can see limiting an elbow or a knee to one axis, but outside of those kind of things I can't think of situations where a hard stop is useful.

The limits on the lower eyelids are something I've run into a lot.

The EyeAimerBone was an extra addition to the FACE rig to add "ease of use". It's sometimes easier to just grab a bone and move it instead of trying to grab a null, especially if the model isn't perpendicular to the camera. It's been a long time since I worked on it, but I think the reason for not using Orient Like constraints was that it somehow interfered with the ability to move each eye individually with their respective nulls, and I wanted the rig to be as flexible as possible.

The limits placed on the FACE rig were necessary to allow the majority of the people to use the rig without constantly breaking things, and they are easy to alter when necessary.

The FACE rig underwent a lot of changes during developement as people requested different capabilities, and in its' current state it's kind of like Frankenstein.... a patchwork of added-on parts, unlike the Squetch rig which is a masterfully refined and integrated engineering marvel.

I'm not sure what it is that they will break. I suppose a VERY new user on their very first time out might accidentally point the eyes backwards. But no real damage done and after that first misstep do we really need to stop them?

I'll commit all of the suggestions to memory and keep them in mind when I get to the point where I'm looking at the FACE interface...should be within a week or so.

I think Mark Strohbehn did a great job on FACE, he left it open enough to be customized however the animator likes and put in some limits (which could be adjusted, if necessary) that would prevent new users from bumping into too many things...it's on a short list of my favorite things. Thanks again for all of your hard work, Mark!