cartoon face animation

arriu · April 23, 2018, 3:18am

I would like to create a model which is similar to the wind waker model but I honestly do not know what to do about the face animations. In the game the face appears to be a 2d texture on a 3d model. In the game the eyes follow nearby people and characters but the eyes are 2d from what I can tell.

here is a screen shot of the game:

I am new to blender (I am a programmer) I do not really know how to use it too well. I plan on exporting the model for use in XNA.

If anyone has any suggestions or could point me in the right direction that would be great.

hiower · April 24, 2018, 11:05am

I am not sure what it really is you are asking for (how to make a model? how to animate?
This might let you off to a start:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Character_Animation

arriu · April 24, 2018, 11:06am

thanks for the reply! =)

What I would like to know is if you had to create the above model how would you create the face such that you could animate the eyes like in the game.

They are flat eyes so i cannot use eyeballs. They seem to be textures which are “pasted” onto the 3d model. Can you animate textures on a model?

All i really want to know is if u were told to create the above character such that you could programmatically move the eyes and change the mouth how would you do it?

afalldorf · April 24, 2018, 11:06am

I believe that The eyes and pupils are all seperate planes that are just above the face and are moved acordingly to appear as if they are focosing on other objects. Windwaker uses its own rendering engine and a very unique style which would be a real chalange to recreate exactly the same in blender without a little scripting.

Lancer · April 24, 2018, 11:06am

They look to be 3D. Spherical eyeballs with flat toon shader, and limits so they don’t roll all the way around.

arriu · April 24, 2018, 11:07am

Thanks for the input guys =)

I am not trying to recreate this in blender as much as i am in a game engine i will be writing soon. I honestly just don’t know who or where to ask anymore.

As far as I know they are not on a flat plain (the eyes curve around the head). The mouth is definitely a texture…

here are some more screens:

(If you look carefully this one shows that the eyes are slightly above the face)