FACIAL RIGGING By MZ

This Demo Includes Elements and structure in a basic facial rigging Some workflow improvement Brow ( clusters, curves, paint weight skills); Eye ( IK, locators, Aim constrains, Controls) Blends shapes

Elements and structure in a basic facial rigging Find the circle center. Use Point contrain( second follow first) Pay attention to the eye.

brow Curves-  clusters  influence of the clusters to the curve  influence of the curves to the skin Select the surface, shift select the curves. Leave use geometry checked on. If we use joint we’d like to turn it down. Default weight zero. Curves and clusters underscore the upper jaw

Picture 1: Influence of the clusters to the curve

eye Rig the eye  IK handles  take them underscored the upper jaw bone. Front view  Make curves  center pivot  snap at the IK handle  drag to the right place  Freeze transformation  rename  center control (control both curves)  Point constrain  remove point constrain  rename and freeze transformation  take the side controls patrents To center control  Clean the attributes  controls + Ik handles( choose ikRPsolver)  point constrain

eye We want full control of the eye, so the eye’s control won’t be affected by other Animation controls. We want the orientation of the eyes targeting the center of the eye  group the side Control  reset settings of aim constrain  set a world up vector to avoid flipping.

eye Fleshy eye –when the eye balls rotates, the eye lid moves a little bit to simulate real eyes. Shift the eye lip while the eye ball rotates. Create a locator in the center of the eye ball. Orient Surface selected > sculpt > match position of the locator < parent the sculpt to the locator

Make it Blink: [ Change orientation of the joints of the lip to make sure the two joints moves in symmetry Direction so that when we change the Z rotate value together, we got the symmetry movement]

Modify  Add attributes( left_upper_lid, left_lower_lip, right_upper lip, right _lower_lip) to the middle curve   Choose Keyable  go to windows  connection editor load the middle cure for the left, load the lip joints for the right as showed in picture 2  match the attributes as picture 3: Picture 2 Picture 3

Blendshape BaseObject  duplicate  move aside (targetObject) Change the shape of TargetObject( Don’t change the topology)  What would be the next?

You may think: bind all the target object to the base object. That is : shift+select the Target object in order, at last the base the base object  create blendshape

The problem is: You can’t add more target after binding since the head is always attached with the body part. And sometimes you need to take a reference.

A better way: Use the attribute attachment. 1. create a target object (T1)as the bridge of base object and other target objects. Create a joint and bind picture 4

2. select (T1), shift + Base Object + create deformers  blend shape (make sure the deformation order is Front of chain under the blend shape options), showed in picture 4 picture 5

To create more blend shapes, you just need to duplicate the T1. Shift +select the Target object in order, at last the T1  create blend shape. You may want to use the soft modification tool to create the blend shapes. Showed in the picture 6. picture 6: soft modification tool

The next you may be interested in: Talking circle Set driven keys to make controls

Thanks ! Any questions, send me an