2D eyes on 3D character?

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I'm fairly new to Unity, but I have been playing around with it for a w$$anonymous$$le making small t$$anonymous$$ngs and stuff - mostly small test like t$$anonymous$$ngs, however I can't t$$anonymous$$nk through what would be the best way to go about t$$anonymous$$s... What would be the best way to to add a 2D animated clip of eyes blinking, on a (UV Mapped) 3d mesh? Ultimately is what I'm trying to ac$$anonymous$$eve: [[Image]][1] [[Video#1]][2] [[Video#2]][3]

For everyt$$anonymous$$ng I've done so far, I've just had static features drawn into the textures, but throwing animation into the mix has confused me.

I've downloaded a few free assets from the asset store and it seems (at least the ones I downloaded) simply swap out the entire texture for the model, with the facial parts of the texture modified. Isn't t$$anonymous$$s not really a good way to go about it, as most of the texture would be the same?

Alternatively, would it be better to texture the character without eyes, and stick them on afterwards from another texture or somet$$anonymous$$ng? I can't figure out how to even begin doing somet$$anonymous$$ng like t$$anonymous$$s, and since the model would have uvs how would you align these facial textures?

Or am I t$$anonymous$$nking about t$$anonymous$$s all wrong?

The next step ideally was to make it fully "dynamic", like in the Windwaker video above - where I could control where the eyes are looking, but I t$$anonymous$$nk I have an idea how to do that bit.. Any input from you knowledgeable unity3d-ers would be fantastic! Thanks guys! :)

[1]: http://imgur.com/B9Jb31t

[2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGn2cgQYszY

[3]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=itD2Hvcf81Q#t=153

Answer 1

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Answer by zephyr7 · Nov 08, 2013 at 02:09 PM

I'd choose one of these ways to go with: A) Keep most of the model as is, but assign a seperate texture to the face/eyes. You simply have to cut UV seams along the edges around the eyes, and map the now UV-sperated polygons of the eyes on your eyes texture; In your eyes Texture you could have eyes looking left at the top, eyes closed below that, eyes whatever below that and so on, all in one texture sheet. You map the eye polygons to fit exactly one of these variations perfectly.

Now when you take that model into unity, you should see two materials on the model. On the eyes material, set tile to 1/number-of-variations-you-have-per-row-in-texture. Now you can modify the x/y offset of the eye material to change the state of the eyes as you want to. You can either do that by script as explained above, or you can do it manually with unity's animation editor by editing the uv offset attributes of the eyes material. Note that if you animate it by hand you have the curves all edgy so it jumps straight from one state to the next rather than scrolling all through the texture.

B) You could also remove the eyes from the main character texture, and put planes or fitting geometry for the eyes in front of the eyes instead, and then do the uv tile/offset t$$anonymous$$ng there using an alpha texture for the eyes. Make sure t$$anonymous$$s doesn't cast shadows on the rest of the face with dynamic lightning. I'd recommend going with solution A

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DMeville · Nov 08, 2013 at 11:52 PM 0

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Thanks for the reply!!

Regarding option A: Unless I'm missing something obvious, simply creating a new uv shell for the face won't allow me to set a different texture for that shell, as since it's part of the same mesh it's in the same UV space as the rest of the mesh. I'd have to extract it as a different object in Maya in order for me to assign it a different material, wouldn't I? Which makes this method nearly identical to option B.

I'll continue to tinker away but I think option B might be a good shot, unless there are other ways I've yet to know about.

zephyr7 · Nov 09, 2013 at 12:07 AM 0

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It's been a few years since i last touched Maya so I don't remember how to do it in maya, but there should be a way to assign different materials to different parts of the same mesh, i'm 100% sure. You should find something if you google multiple textures/materials on the same object in Maya.

But if option B works for you and doesn't cause shadow issues in your setup, that's fine too of course ^^

Answer 2

Answer by ashwinFEC · Oct 15, 2014 at 10:33 AM

Here is how they did the eyes in legend of zelda http://www.benjones.us/twilight-princess-eyes-breakdown/

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2D eyes on 3D character?

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