The face of a mouse

• In Tutorial 3, we create the movement of the face of a mouse with combining the multiple Influence modes. The eyes and the nose of the mouse will be moved independently using Independent, and the part of its ears will be moved with Parent and Childern. And the face itself will be fixed so as it is not affected by the deformation of its ears and eyes.
  
  

• Creating PGL files

  
  
  1. Loading a scene file
     Start up LightWave 3D Layout, and set ContentDirectory to "Tutorial" to load the scene file mouse.lws. Since PGL has not been set at this time, a part of the face gets distorted moving along with the movement of its ears and eyes.

  2. Starting up PGL Editor
     Start up PGL_Editor from Plugins menu.

  3. Deleting PGL files
     Since there is a PGL file already created included in Tutorial folder, select Delete PGL from File menu before starting Tutorial to delete the PGL file.

  4. Lay out points to the bone of the nose
     After selecting the bone of the nose part on order to make the setting on that part, change 3D view to the view from the Top. If you press 'A' key after this, that nose part will be focused. Since there is the surface with the name of Nose for the polygons of the nose, select Nose from Surface pop-up, and press button. Now the points constructing the polygons of the Nose surface were laid out to BoneNose.
     

     

  5. Lay out points to the bones of the eyes
     For the polygons of the eyes, there are the surfaces with the names of Eye and Pupil. Select LBoneEye, and select Eye from Surface pop-up to press button. Similarly, add the surface of Pupil.
     
     Then, lay out the polygon for one eye to the bone RBoneEye for the other eye. First execute Hide All,and then Show Current consecutively. You will have the status that only the points of the eyes and the bones are displayed. Select RBoneEye, and lay out the points for one eye to RBoneEye with using brush.

     

  6. Lay out the points to the bone of the ears
     For the bone of the ears, lay out the points with using brush. Set 3D view to Front, and lay out the points as the image below for the three bones for one ear. The points of the root of the ears belong to (root).

     

• Setting PGL Play

  
  
  1. Set Influence and Fall Off for each bone as the following chart.
     
     

     Bone	Influence	Fall Off
     (root)	Independent	-
     LBoneTop	Parent and Children	1 / Distance^16
     LBoneMdl	Parent and Children	1 / Distance^16
     LBoneBottom	Parent and Children	1 / Distance^16
     LBone	All Bone	1 / Distance^4
     LBoneEye	Independent	-
     RBoneTop	Parent and Children	1 / Distance^16
     RBoneMdl	Parent and Children	1 / Distance^16
     RBoneBottom	Parent and Children	1 / Distance^16
     RBone	All Bone	1 / Distance^4
     RBoneEye	Independent	-
     BoneNose	Independent	-

  2. Preview animation
     Press of Layout to preview the animation.