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Universal Anime Head

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Universal Anime Head

It all started when I bought a book called "Poser 4 Handbook" back in 2001. I was coming from Poser 3, and this book was showing things I had no idea were possible to do with regular figures without using any other tools. I thought it was cool, but by then I had no use for it.

Much later in 2005, I was fed up with Aiko3's "fake" Anime style, and needed a figure that could wear her clothes, but replace her head with one that was more suitable for the style. AnimeDoll had the perfect head for the job, but her body was outdated and basically had no morphs. Her wardrobe was also limited. Aiko3 had a modern body and decent wardrobe, but I resented her head.

That motivated me to create the very first "hybrid" Anime figure for Poser, called "Madoka". It had Aiko3's body with the head of AnimeDoll, where I modeled a new neck and merged everything into a single mesh with body and head morphs preserved and fully functioning. A3/AD Madoka had the best of both worlds. That solved my problem, and I made her a freebie at Renderosity.

Later on, I was considering using AnimeDoll's head with other bodies, but making a "hybrid" figure was complicated. There must be an easier way. The answer was in that "Poser 4 Handbook" I have mentioned in the beginning. It shows that any body part from any figure can be replaced with a prop, which gave me some ideas.

The AnimeDoll head, or any other head for this matter are not props, but figures. So that body part replacement wouldn't work for this - or so I thought. The truth is, Poser is much more flexible than I thought. At a first glance, if we select a figure in Poser and look at the properties, we can only parent a figure to a prop, but not to another figure. But instead, what if we open the Hierarchy Editor, and just drag and drop it over the figure? Voila! We have created a "composite" figure without leaving Poser or using any external tools!

So "hybrid" is good, but "composite" is better! Or at least, it's easy to make. We can mix and match bodies and heads from any figures we like on the spot. Imagine the possibilities. So now I had a new Madoka, this time using Vicky4's body with AnimeDoll's head. Whenever I found an outfit I wanted Madoka to wear, I just swapped the body instead of converting the clothings.

But here's the thing - AnimeDoll was never updated in years, so her head was showing signs of obsolescence. It wasn't until much later in 2014 that I realized nobody was making the head I was wishing for, so I decided to make it myself. The objective was to make something that could be flexible enough to build different characters with it, and also provide the much needed wider range of Anime expressions I couldn't get from any Aiko.

The head should make male, female, child, adult and chibi characters, and fit the bodies from any figure - hence the "universal" head. The mesh ended up with only 1660 faces, which was 10 times less polys than Dawn's head. It may look rather jagged but that's where Poser (or DS) subdivision surfaces come in. It was built and designed to benefit from subdivision surfaces. If we need more polys, Poser can subdivide it. The best setting was to leave it low poly in previews, and set it to subdivide only in renders.

But if the head and body are from different figures, can I use textures? There are ways to use, or not to use textures in this case. We can use textures and try to match the skin tone, and that might take some practice. Another way is to use simple color skin tones, which will always be a perfect match in renders. Anime characters are all about flat colors anyway. But the head has a UV template if textures are needed.

What about neck seams? "Hybrid" figures are seamless, while "composite" are not. There will be a seam, but we shouldn't be able to see it unless in very specific poses and camera angles. It should not be visible with the typical poses and framing we use in Poser/DS. In cases where the seam does show up, we can remove it in postwork, just like we do with clothing pokethrus and bad joint bendings. In my experience, it rarely ever happens.

Once I had the head, I started experimenting with composite figures using a variety of bodies: Posette, Aiko3, Aiko4, Vicky4, Dawn, Nearme, Cookie, Genesis, Genesis 2 Female, and Micheal 4.

Combo.jpg


The package has native versions for Poser or DS4, and includes about 100 items:
  • Universal Anime Head with 110+ morph dials (low poly: 1660 faces)
  • 10 pages Composite Figure Creation PDF tutorial
  • 25 eye texture presets
  • 30 skin tones presets (colors)
  • 30 expression presets (head poses)
  • 5 additional Anime style presets (70s, adult, child, chibi and monkey)
  • 3 texture templates for you to create your own textures
  • Upper and lower teeth (SmartProps)
  • ReadMe file with tips & hints for best use
The head doesn't use weight maps, so in theory it should work with ALL versions of Poser and DS, though the DS version is in the current DUF format, which I think requires DS 4.6.

The morphs are divided into head shaping and individual features (eyes, mouth, nose, ears, etc). The flat Anime eyes are poseable with regular Side-side and Up-down dials. For that to be possible, I had to rig the eyes with magnets in rather unorthodox ways, or else the eyeballs might poke out of the head when posed. The result was that the eyes are squashed flat, but can be posed the same way as if they were spherical. Works like a charm!
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
Wants!

Love it Ken, such a great idea and it really does look like proper anime/manga especially compared to anything else out there. I also love the fact that it can be used with any body that people might have in their runtime.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Thanks, Rae! Even though I am posting this at the Dawn thread, the head can indeed be used with any figures. This means anything can be Animenized. Also, learning how to make a composite figure can be expanded to any other figure, not just this head. Having a head without a body just makes it easier. :)
 

Rokket

Dances with Bees
I want it! You should put it in the market here. I can't believe it's so versatile. This is amazing to me.
 

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
Def want. So Ken, reading a bit about the seams issue that some may get in certain poses. Here is what I would suggest if your up for it... Create a neck area for the doll head and various "fits" for different characters. At the bottom of the neck make a transmap to blend between the neck and body of the host figure. Just an idea... :)
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
@Rokket Thanks, I am glad you've liked it. ^^

@FairyFantastic I think composite figures are a powerful feature and I have been using them since Poser 3. In this package I will be teaching people how to make them. ^___^
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Def want. So Ken, reading a bit about the seams issue that some may get in certain poses. Here is what I would suggest if your up for it... Create a neck area for the doll head and various "fits" for different characters. At the bottom of the neck make a transmap to blend between the neck and body of the host figure. Just an idea... :)

Thanks, Rich! That was more or less what I first thought doing - but there is a technical problem with that. When unposed, it becomes seamless, but when poses are applied, the 2 meshes won't stay together - unless they were geografted - which is not supported in Poser. In addition, since we cannot predict what body will be used, trying to make a morph fit would limit the range of application to only those I had provided morphs for. So what I did was to create a morph on the neck that helps hiding the seam in a genetic way. :)
 

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
Ah, so it's not a conformer, it's just a prop? Is it possible to make it a full conformer?
 

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
I remember years and years ago I did beta testing for a new head for Victoria 3 that was a full conforming head. Her name was Eszter and it was from DigiCalimero that same published artist that made Wild Hair and Wild Hair Male.

Found this render of her face. You MAY remember her....
V3 Eszter2PSD_Small.jpg
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
@RAMWolff Composite figure heads are figures, not props. They cannot be conformed, and fhaf's the basic rule if we want to make them "universal". I have the Ezter head for Vicky4, and she's a conforming item - therefore it will only work with a single figure. That's because conforming means matching a particular skeleton that is unique to that single figure. That is completely unnecessary, and if you look at the 12 example renders from above, we can't see any seams and there was no postwork in any of them. Believe me, I have been doing this since Poser 3. :)

@FairyFantastic Oh yes, this wouldn't be just a head, but a learning experience that can be applied to everything you have in your gallery.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
I was fascinated by the idea of composite figures since I read about it on that book in 2001. It allows us to inject new life into our existing library, making it more versatile without having to spend money in new contents. It was first attempted in Poser 3, and I have been doing it ever since. ^^
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
. . . but when poses are applied, the 2 meshes won't stay together - unless they were geografted - which is not supported in Poser.
I was thinking of asking you about geografting when I first read your comments in the other thread, but didn't know if Poser supported it. Not that I ever tried it in DS, but it was always an interesting topic.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Oh I agree, I just thought, when I first saw it available in the DS parameters, that it was an interesting idea.

Universal is always the better way to go. ;)
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Indeed, I have 2 other "universal" products at CP that keep being my bestsellers for years. :)
 
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