Simple¶
Simple points the character straight at the target. The eyes, head, neck and body each take a share of the turn, as far as each is allowed to go, and whatever one part cannot reach is left to the next.
Simple is the familiar game-character look, at a lower cost. It aims the chain straight at the target, the standard way game characters look at things, so it reads as what you expect from a game rather than from a person. It is the cheaper of the two, which is what matters for a crowd, where the saving is paid once per character. It shares the eyes at rest, the blinks, the pupils and the idle motion with Biomechanical, so the two look like the same character at rest.
Both are correct answers to different questions. Biomechanical is built for the close-up, Simple for the many.
Cheaper, but Not by Enough for a Main Character
The saving is real but modest. In our measurements the aiming step ran at about three quarters of Biomechanical's cost under Simple, and that step is only part of what the eyes cost each frame, so the whole saving per character is smaller than a switch of engine suggests. For the character people are looking at, the fidelity given up is not worth it.
Reach for Simple where the saving is paid many times over, a crowd, or a stretch of heavy action where nobody is watching faces. For everything else, the output rate is the better lever: it cuts far more, on every driver at once, and loses far less.
The Knobs¶
Simple has few controls of its own, and all of them answer one question: how much of each part's range a look is allowed to spend before the remainder passes further down the chain. They sit in the Engine section while Simple is selected.
The quick way to shape a Simple character is the Chain Preset in Auto-Setup, Natural, Head Heavy or Body Heavy, which is described on The Body. The four dials below are the fine version of the same idea, one for each part of the body, from the eyes down.
Eye Effort¶
How much of the eyes' range a look spends. At full the eyes travel as far as the character would ever choose to look. Lower it and they stop nearer the range they hold comfortably, so the head takes over sooner and the eyes read as steadier. This is the one dial that never takes its part out of a look: at zero the eyes still carry their comfortable range.
Neck Effort¶
How much of the neck's range a look spends. At full the head and neck bend as far as their limits permit. Lower it and they stop short, keeping something in reserve, and the turn that is left over passes down to the torso. Only a deep look feels this. A glance never reaches far enough to notice.
Chest Effort¶
The same limit for the chest. The chest carries most of a turn, so this is the dial that decides whether a character swings its upper body after a look or holds it composed and lets the turn go unfinished.
Abdomen Effort¶
The same limit for the abdomen. The lower back barely twists on a real body, so this usually sits low. Raise it for a character that should bend from the waist rather than the ribs.
Smoothing Zones¶
One more row is Simple's alone, inside Output Conditioning, under the Smoother when its mode is Fixed. Zones says whether the smoothing time is set per part, eyes, head, neck and body each with their own, or one Uniform time for the whole chain. Biomechanical has nothing to draw there, because its movement is already shaped to how a person moves, and smoothing on top would blunt it.