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Creating tiny characters?

Posted By Danny_B 7 Years Ago
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Creating tiny characters?

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Danny_B
Danny_B
Posted 7 Years Ago
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Hi,

I'm trying to create some fairy characters for my fantasy animations, and I'd like them to be 30cm/12" in height.  However, when I scale them down to that size, by setting the character scale slider to a value of -165, I get the following:

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/848cc184-bd24-44d6-bafa-38fb.png

The clothes hover off the body and the mesh is inconsistent.  In this example, the only thing I've changed is the character scale.  Everything else is at the default.  Is there a way to create characters this small and have them look correct?
Kelleytoons
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Yes, but you'll also need iClone.

I took the default gal, sized her down to around 3 feet (the smallest the scale will go on a normal slider), exported her to iClone, resided to 33, and then sent her back to CC (it's possible this can all be done in iClone, but it's just how I proceeded):


76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/692c6879-f40d-4ba9-b8b4-e1ad.png




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Danny_B
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Thanks for that.  I've tried it, and that does seem to solve the body/clothing problem.  However, there's another one that seems to have cropped up.  When I put the character into iClone then back to Character Creator, I get this:

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/4cfa6cd3-b1dd-4cea-96fb-15e6.png

Then when I hit the play button in iClone, I get this:

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/14261d37-cd16-4ef4-8be7-0889.png

Is there something else I need to do to get the hair/physics of the character to work properly?
Kelleytoons
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I don't think you'll be able to do much.  Clearly the physics don't scale down that fine, which is understandable.  You can turn down the brightness of the weight maps, which will help but in order to get them under control you basically have to turn them down so far the physics won't work much on the hair.

You might want to put in an RT about this, but I suspect it will be low priority (in the meantime, use hair that won't need physics).



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Danny_B
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I've been doing a bit of poking around, and I suspect it's something to do with the hair/soft cloth physics and collisions.  I tried rendering some videos to show what I was getting, but what was rendered didn't match what was happening in the real-time preview.  The hair continues to flick about of its own accord, and when shrunk, both it and the clothes flap about.

Here's the video of it at full size:



Here's the video with the character shrunk down:


Danny_B
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Accidentally posted - didn't realise the 'enter' key submits post when in the tag box.
Also, how do I delete a post on this forum?
animagic
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You can't delete a post, unfortunately. Just edit it, like you did.



Danny_B
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Thanks.
Danny_B
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Righto, I think I've got this sorted out.  I'll post what I worked out here, in case anyone else needs it.

Objective: To have fairy-sized characters, who are 1/6 the size of humans, scaled and working in iClone for use in animated story episodes.

Obstacle 1:
When characters were shrunk down to size in Character Creator 3, the mesh for both the body and clothes became distorted:
76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/cd08023f-3c00-4e4b-b191-436a.png

Solution Found:
Create the character at full size in Character Creator, then scale them down in iClone.

Obstacle 2:
When the characters are shrunk down in iClone, the physics for the hair and soft cloth seems to go crazy, and does the same when imported back into Character Creator after scaling:
76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/a39a5427-d81d-4241-a058-6d6d.png

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/6f555331-41c8-4847-9ea2-e0d2.png

Solution Found:
After a bit of poking around, I found that this was caused by the collision shape of the character.  This behaviour is occurring with the character at 100% as well, but isn't as noticeable.  When looking at the collision shape, I noticed that the collision box for the head was big enough to include the hair:
76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/837d4a23-64e2-413b-8902-aed6.png
As such, I suspected that the hair was colliding with this collision box constantly, and this was leading to the unexpected behaviour.  I also noticed that the collision box for the upper chest seemed to have the hair resting on it, rather than on the skin.  I tried adjusting the collision box for a character scaled at 100%, and found that this resolved the issue.  I then tried it with a character scaled down to 16% - the size of a fairy.

Obstacles 3 & 4:
When the character was scaled down, the elements of the collision shape seem to fold in over one another:
76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/0370f57a-e866-46b4-a2a0-9c62.png
Furthermore, when I attempted to move the collision box with the character at this size, it disappeared off the screen and the move widget suddenly grew larger.

Solution Found:
For this obstacle, it seemed as though I'd run up against a limitation of the software.  After considering it for a while, I went back to my original objective.  I was trying to create fairies that were 1/6 the size of humans.  Or to say it slightly differently, I was trying to depict a world where the humans are 6 times the size of fairies.  I was thinking in terms of absolute size, when in this case, it's relative size that matters.  Once the video is rendered, the viewer isn't going to be able to tell if the fairies were scaled down, or if the humans were scaled up (I think.  This sort of thing is still new to me.).  Props can be scaled up.  I did a bit of poking around, and found that the water and particle effects can be adjusted so they look bigger.

So that's the approach I'm going to take.  I'll make the fairy characters at 100%, and scale the human characters up to 600%.




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