Facial tests

This is the facial rig in a mostly done state. I need to add articulation to the eyelids to get more expressiveness out of them, and I need to add controls for the cheekpits, tongue and the outside of the orbicularis oculi which helps sell winks and squints. This rig is made with a combination of wire deformers for general movements and clusters for finer articulation. The lips have separate translate, rotate and scale pivots so each action can have a different pivot and different falloff.

Still going...

Last post I talked about progress on the face rig and the skinning. That progress showed me several areas in the mesh that needed improvement so I back tracked and made some topology changes in the face and torso. While I was at it, I decided to do some adjusting of some of my joint pivots as well as adding in some helper joints that will be used for preserving volume. Though this does set me back in my progress, I think that this rig will benefit from the changes; and that's the whole point, right?

Long overdue progress.

Finished hooking up the face controls and the initial weighitng pass. After posing this guy, some problems became apparent in both the weighting and the mesh. I know my poor lighting job doesn't make it clear, but the upper eyelids are a bit lumpy in the area that leads up to the brows. The shape of the nose gets muddied up when I lift the nostril. I'm pretty happy with the mouth. The corners of the lips need some work but i'm liking the center of the lips are working out.

I'm trying to avoid correcting things with Blendshapes as much as possible for two reasons: I want this setup to be able to work in a game pipeline, where we are all joint driven, and this character has been an exercise in learning to model for deformation. I want the Rig and the Topology to carry the deformation and only use Blendshapes to augment, instead of correct.

Feedback is always welcome in the comments or you can email it to me as well. This is certainly a good learning experience for me.