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Dudeman
06-03-2002, 10:16 PM
I've got a basic lipsynch on a character and would like to overlay expressions around the mouth. Example: He grins while talking. Or frowns while talking.
I've tried the Trax Editor and have found that it is not practical. Also it only works in an 'additive' way.
Is there a script or something maybe like BlendNode or something for Maya4? Is there an 'animation layers' script? I would like to blend weights. Not additive.

Any ideas?

-Dudeman:thumbsup:
bigfatMELon
06-03-2002, 11:18 PM
There are a few blending scripts out there, but they use the weighted blend node which is additive blending. The only node I've seen that doesn't inherently blend additively is the blendColors, which weights between two sources (which is still additive blending). However, building a tree of successive blend inputs for multiple bones with that node blows donkey.

The blendWeighted node is ultimately what you're after. Building a matrix of blendWeighted nodes and running each attr of each bone through it's own node while rigging up controls to the weight values for each arbitrary group bones can grant you some excellent blend control. Far better than Trax or even Filmbox (I've got a script in development that does just that).

Of course, all of this stuff can be avoided by simply doing all of your facial animation on blendshapes instead of joints.

-jl
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