Blend Shape-based Facial Rigging in Maya
In this series of Maya tutorials, you'll learn production-proven facial rigging techniques for animation. Software required: Autodesk Maya 2015.
What you'll learn
In this series of Maya tutorials, you'll learn production-proven facial rigging techniques for animation. We'll start by building a facial skeleton. We'll then cover time-saving binding and weight-painting techniques. From there, we'll begin setting up control objects and Blend Shapes that will allow animators to produce natural and appealing facial expressions while having fun with the control rig. Along the way we'll learn how to attach objects to a deforming mesh, we'll learn how to troubleshoot common issues one might come across during the construction of the rig, and also learn how to script tools using both Python and MEL to improve our efficiency. By the end of this Maya training, you'll be equipped with the knowledge you need to set up your own facial rigs. Software required: Autodesk Maya 2015.
Table of contents
- Checking the Model's Topology and Building Core Facial Joints 12m
- Setting up Joints for the Nose, Ears, and Teeth 9m
- Mirroring Joints in Maya 5m
- Creating Joints for the Tongue 7m
- Creating an Alignment Tool 7m
- Creating an Alignment Tool with Python 7m
- Controlling the Eyes 6m
- Deforming the Eyelids 7m
- Connecting the Facial Skeleton to the Character's Body and Skinning the Face 6m
- Refining Skin Deformations 11m
- Squashing and Stretching the Mouth 9m
- Finishing Our Squash and Stretch System for the Mouth 10m
- Progress Check: Deformations 6m
- Rigging the Eyebrows 7m
- Creating a System to Drive the Deformations of the Eyebrows 6m
- Creating a System that Will Deform the Eyebrow Geometry 6m
- Creating Blend Shapes for Brow Deformations 9m
- Mirroring Blend Shapes 6m
- Creating a Blend Shape-mirroring Tool with Python 9m
- Finishing the Setup of Our Eyebrow Targets 2m
- Deforming the Hair 7m
- A Fast and Effective Way of Simulating Fleshy Eyes 7m
- A Flexible Neck Rig 7m
- Setting up a Neck Control 5m
- Controlling the Character's Head 4m
- Twisting the Neck 8m
- Dynamically Parenting the Head Control 4m
- Creating a Jaw Control 5m
- Driving the Brows 6m
- Finishing Our Brow Rig 5m
- Adding Ear Controls 5m
- Controlling the Nose 6m
- Controlling the Tongue 8m
- Finishing Our Tongue Controls 4m
- Teeth Controls 7m
- Eye Controls 8m
- Dynamically Parenting the Eye Controls to Follow the Character's Head 3m
- Wrapping up Our Work on the Eyelids 7m
- Hair Controls 8m
- Creating Phonemes for Facial Animation 8m
- Mirroring Our Phoneme and Exploring Other Facial Shapes 5m
- Creating a Facial GUI 8m
- Connecting Our Facial Shapes to the GUI 7m
- Finalizing the Rig 5m
- Attaching Objects to a Deforming Model 6m
About the author
Delano works avidly as an animation author at Pluralsight. Starting his career at animation studios like Shilo, Delano has developed a strong passion for his talents. His animation and rigging background help him teach and create some of the most-watched training on Pluralsight. A few of his favorite projects that he has contributed to include: Character Interaction in Maya and in Softimage, Rigging the Human Face in Maya, Rigging Sea Creatures in Maya, and Rigging and Animating Transforming... more