Tutorial Eye Blinking

This tutorial will show you how to add an eye blink animation to a character. Make sure you checked out the basic guides for the Editor and Scene Wallpaper!

## Preparation

* Open the Editor.
* Get an image with a character to animate, like this one. It must be suitable for this effect, meaning that you need to have some kind of skin/eyelids visible for animation!

## Import the Image

   Drag and drop the image into the editor.

   The project name and scheme color will be automatically set, you can change them if you like. Press *OK* to import the image and create the wallpaper.

    A new wallpaper will be created and the image should become visible.

## Add Shake Effect

    Select the image on the left and then click *Add* in the effects menu to add a new effect.

    Select Image Effect Shake and click *OK*.

## Limit Shake to Eyelids

First the eyelid animation needs to be limited to the eyelids. This will avoid distortion on the eyes or surrounding skin later.

     Click on *Paint* near the opacity mask to start masking the eyelid area.

     Clear the entire area with black (value 0). Then paint the eyelids with white (value 255). Click on *Show mask* at the bottom to see exactly where you are currently painting the mask.

💡 **Pro tip:** Click on *Show mask* to make the mask visible. It is crucial here because there is no movement yet.

## Paint Eyelid Animation

     Set the *direction* to *left* and change the bounds to this temporarily: *-1 to 0*. These bounds will make the animation always be in full effect at all times, making it easier to paint the eyelid movement and smooth out distortions!

     Start painting the movement for the eyelids by clicking *Paint* next to the *Shake Direction*. (in previous versions of Wallpaper Engine, this was named *Flow map*) Click *Show mask* again to make painting an even surface easier.

     Move the eyelids down by painting downward strokes. Make sure everything is evenly distributed at this step and that you reach the very bottom of the eyes.

     Now adjust the *Strength* option so that the eyelids reach exactly at the bottom of the eye! In this case the strength has to be increased from the default 0.1 to about 0.2.

     Continue painting, set the value to *0* and reduce the *Opacity* to about a low 5. Try to achieve smooth gradients over the eyelids, so that the top completely fades out while the bottom is still in full effect. Check the picture on the right, you can see that the bottom of the eyes is still fully red, while it fades out completely as you move up over the eyelids!

💡 **Pro tip:** Adjust the strength back and forth to see where the eyelids are still distorting in an uneven manner, this makes it much easier to reach a good result later. You can always come back to this step if you are not happy with the final result.

 If you think you're done, manually move the strength slider back and forth to check the animation. If it looks good, continue below to set up the parameters for automatic blinking. If it still needs tweaking, go back one step to adjust the distortion.

## Finalize Eye Blink Timing

     To achieve a short blink, set the *Bounds* to *0.99 to 0.997* and keep the *Strength* at the maximum value you used in the steps before, in this case, about 0.2. The strength is completely dependent on your picture.