New free plug-in to map eyes to UV offsets to animate non-standard eyes with no bones


https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic435603.aspx 		Print Topic | Close Window

By elMartino - 4 Years Ago
Hi guys, After taking a lot from the community to build up my skills over the last year I decided to make a plug-in and give something back.
Out of my own needs having characters with eyes that are not round and can't be animated properly and having seen odd round eyes on flat characters, I was thinking of a solution and came up with this.
Hope it helps some of you!
Seems quiet here in the forums ... Doze


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By Eric C (RL) - 4 Years Ago
Hello elMartino,

That is a very cool plugin, and thank you for sharing with us!
What inspires you to create this plugin, and how long did it take for you to finish the plugin?

RL
By elMartino - 4 Years Ago
Hi Eric,
A bit over a year ago I purchased iClone with the intend to get into 3D animation and create videos for kids. When you reach a certain skill level and understanding you soon discover some limitations of the software. For me it was animating quadrupeds and other characters that are non-human. Recently when working with the pony characters I was annoyed by them staring in one direction all the time and I looked for a solution and the only feasible option was the UV offset because the eyes are not round so could not be controlled properly with bones. I'm having years of coding background but never used python so had to pick that one up first but as it's just another language it was not too hard for me. However, your API is not documented well and seems buggy and setting up a work flow with an IDE was a challenge initially starting from 0 with python. Your example scripts do help a lot getting started though. It took me about 5 days to get it all together and a working proof of concept and I think I spent another few days polishing it up and make it stable after deciding that I'll share it.
By Eric C (RL) - 4 Years Ago
Hi elMartino,
Appreciate your feedback, so insipiring for the Python plugin makers.
iClone is indeed dedicated for character animations, and your plugin really help to animating quadrupeds. Glad that our example scripts did help, which means that we are doing on the right direction. Let us know what content you like to see on our Wiki page and I will help forward this to our team =)