here i'll make it simple for you because no the manual does not teach you in depth how to do it. I will teach you how to do basic head morphing.
- THE MORPHER NODE:
The Morpher node is a pretty eas node in general (2 inputs, 1 out, 1 mask). the first input on the left is the source input and its where you will put the image or video you are starting from. the second input is almsot like an output, due to the fact that its your target image. That is where you put your second image or video clip you wish to to morph into.
- FIRST MORPH:
When you add your inputs to your morpher node, make sure you have your morpher node attributes open in the parameters tab. In the viewer in the upper left there are your starting tools. It will already be set for you to start making your morph.
there will be a dropdown menu that says source image, and this means that in the view you are only seeing the first input of the node. Ther is also Target image in the drop down to view only your second input, and morphed image is viewing what is being output. there is one button in that same area that should be highlighted in green with a + and a squigly circle on it. this means that you are adding a new shape to your source image ( the other button to the right of it that is gray at the moment is the edit shape button).
with your source image selected and the create new shape button on, go ahead and start drawing around one main area of of your image. This tool will work the same as a rotoshape, meaning as you draw you will be able to add bezier handles by clicking and dragging when you add a point for round edges. Start with something simple like the nose. draw a basic shape around the nose (if on video do it only on the first frame of where you want to start the morph). now you have a shape created for the nose of your source image, but what about your target image...
a lot of people make the mistake of trying to draw another shape around the target image and make it match exactly. that wont work because you have to let shake know that the 2 are going to connect. while still on your source image, right click on one of your shape's points, then select "Duplicate and Connect Shape". this will create an exact copy of your source image shape, but it will make it as your target image's shape with a connection for when you do the morph.
in the drop down menu go ahead and switch to Target Image. there are now some more buttons in this window to take into consideration and they are just left of the view selecton dropdown. scroll over a couple of the green/gray buttons and find the ones that are call "View Source Shapes" and "View Target Shapes". make sure that "View Source Shapes" button is now switched to gray so you dont accidentally move the shape for your source image. now that you see only your Target image and its shape, lets move the shape you created to the shape of your target image's nose. after you finish that, switch your view onto "Morphed Image" in the dropdown menu.
Now that you have your first shape drawn out (nose), go ahead and go over to the lower right quadrant of shake in the parameters tab. in here you can rename your shapes, but do not rename the shape connects for it will do that for you. the only controls you really need are "overallDisplacement" and "overallDissolve". go ahead and hide all the shapes you drew (either by using the shape visibility buttons or by right clicking on your image and going to "shape visibility>hide all") and after doing so, drag your "overallDisplacement" slider from 0 to 1, and watch your image as you do so. it should now be changing nose shapes and dissolving between images as it does so. the "overallDissolve" slider is connected to the displacement slider by default until seperately adjusted.
now that you have done the nose, switch your view back to Source Image and create a new shape for a different part of the face, then you just repeat that process. Pretty long, but at least you understand it now, and the more you do it the faster you get at it and the easier it is. hope understand everything. if not, dont hesitate to ask.
if you want to view one of my morphs, go to http://www.whitecrowproductions.net and go to sample work.