A 6-second loop of tavern guests resting their mugs and taking a drink

After 153-2 the mug was mostly sorted, but the holding pose had it right under the chin, which still looked awkward. I thought it'd be nice to have something like reaching out, grabbing a mug off the table, or drinking and putting it back down.

The original beer mug is 0.36 m tall, so even scaled to 0.8× (0.28 m) it was big for an SD body. Held in front of the chest, the top came up to the chin. And there was only one mug-holding pose, so they just sat there holding it. So I decided to shrink the mug and make a loop where they rest and take an occasional drink.

Screens I built

The new clip is a single 6-second loop.

• 0–2.6 s: resting on the thighs in front of the knees
• 2.6–3.3 s: raising it through an in-between pose
• 3.3–4.5 s: tilting the mug 55° toward the face and drinking
• 4.5–5.2 s: lowering it and resting again

Garen and Pelli use this animation, and Pelli gets a different start time. Only while drinking, the head tips back a little and turns toward the front. The base idle clip turns the head to the left, so if I left it alone, they'd be drinking while looking sideways.

The mug tilt comes from a curve value (0–1) in the clip, passed through the Animator to the mug alignment script. The top of the mug tilts toward the mouth, pivoting on the grip point.

In the resting pose, the top of the mug is at 0.79 m (chest), the bottom at 0.58 m (above the thighs), and the tilt is 0°. I shrank all tavern mugs, both the ones on tables and the bar and the ones in hand, to 0.6× (0.21 m). The decorative mugs on the tables look a natural size now next to the candlesticks and bottles.

The mug wobbles a little while drinking, but it felt good enough, so I locked in this animation.

Things I thought about

• No grabbing mugs off the table. The tabletop at 0.81 m is at chest height for a seated SD body, so gripping a handle there brings the hand up to head height.
• Building the clip by blending poses. I blend the rest, in-between and drinking poses per segment, and loop the base idle clip underneath for the other curves like breathing and facial expressions.

Rabbit hole: the mug rim 7.5 cm below the mouth

While drinking, it looked like the mug was pressed against the chin or the neck. The arm in the drinking pose was too low and the head was turned to the side.

I measured the mouth position and scanned 4,500 combinations by the distance between the mug rim and the lower lip, then raised the arm more. I also added a value that turns the head toward the front.

Rabbit hole: hitting the tabletop on the way up and down

Pelli sank in by 5.4 cm and Garen by as much as 6.7 cm. The resting mug sits 2 cm behind the table's front edge, just under the top, so blending the two poses directly made the hand move forward as it went up.

I added an in-between pose that pulls the arm toward the body and raises the mug upright. I simulated the path in 17 steps and picked values that keep at least 1 cm from the table and at least 2 cm from the face.

Rabbit hole: brushing past the chin, then sinking in again on the way down while tilted

I had set the tilt from the height difference between the head and the hand, so the mug was already fully tilted while it was still in front of the chest and chin. I changed the tilt to its own clip curve, so it tilts only after it's fully raised and comes down only after the tilt is fully undone.

Measuring one full loop for both guests every frame: 0 cm into the table, at least 2.5 cm from the face and hair, 0.7–1.2 cm between the mug rim and the lower lip while drinking, and 0 mug vertices inside the face.

Next up

• The drinking values are based on the village chairs and long tables (top at 0.81 m), so seating someone at a table of a different height means measuring the path again
• If I polish it again, start by lengthening the 0.25 s tilt transition or looking at the jitter in the mug orientation math