3D Research and Development - Bagboy Paperbag Rig

For Bagboy's Paperbag in the film I want his eyes to be quite expressive, which is a difficult task, since his eyes are basically just 2 black holes! However, I had an idea.

I looked at Pocoyo:

and also at Blue Umbrella:

And I loved how they had given these basic characters and basic textures such expressive eyes.

So i set about doing it myself using some rigging knowledge as a test.

It's obvious that they've used 2D Images for the Eye textures so I'll need to use Photoshop with Maya for this task.

In rigging you can use driven keys to connect one attribute to another, and you can also use a "Frame Extension" with an Image Sequence to make one File Node in the Hypershade represent a series of images.

So with this in my head I began to create my test through some trial and error.

I first created a box as my test Paperbag Head and a simple Nurbs Circle to use as a Controller.

On the Nurbs Circle I added an "Enum" (selectable) attribute called Eyes Shape and gave it Enum Values like "Open" "blink" and "Happy.

I export my Box UV's and bring it into Photoshop, after which I create some simple textures on the face I require textures for. Then export these images as separate tif's as if they were an image sequence.

Then I attach a file node of my "base" texture (in my case the Eyes 001 which is the Open Eyes image) to a lamberts colour value.

And use set driven keys to connect the Eyes Shape Attribute...

...to the Frame Extension Value.

And then set a driven key to each attribute for example:

Eyes Shape: Open -> keyed to -> Frame Extension 1

Eyes Shape: Blink -> keyed to -> Frame Extension 2

Eyes Shape: Happy -> keyed to -> Frame Extension 3

And then when I turn on my Image Sequence option on my File Textures attributes I can then...

Animate between textures like stop motion as I want!

FINISHED PLAYBLAST FOR TEST: