Here’s the bone mode image Vegan, but it doesn’t give you very much information. The CP weighting information that is in the attachments named “newbertramfacerig1.zip” and “newbertramfacerig2.zip” that are on the second page of the Hash thread would probably help more. After you unzip both of those files to the same folder, open “riggingface.html” in your internet browser.
Pixelmech, it’ll get clearer…there’ll be that “lightbulb moment” when it will click. Tear it apart then try to duplicate portions of it and you’ll understand it better. The first part is to make bones that go to each CP on the mouth originating from the center of the head and mouth (name them whatever_lr), then duplicate each of those bones with the duplicates in exactly the same place as the first set (name them whatever_ud), make each “ud” bone the child bone of the “lr” bone that is in the exact same place. Now, for each “lr” bone make a percentage pose with 100% being how far left the left side “lr” bones can go and how far right the right side “lr” bones can go (I put Euler limits on each so that that would be the only direction they could move) and then make the -100% settings how far the bones can move in the opposite direction. Then make a percentage pose that has all of the left side “lr” bones’ sliders set at 100% when that pose is 100% and all of them set at -100% when that slider is set at -100% (name that slider “leftside_width”), repeat for the right side and name that slider “rightside_width”. Then make a percentage pose that has both the “leftside_width” and “rightside_width” sliders set at 100% when the new slider is at 100% and -100% when the new slider is at -100% (name it something like “mouth_width”). Now you can widen the left or right or both sides of the mouth (or individual CP’s if it becomes necessary). Repeat this process with the “ud” bones, substituting up/down for left/right (I put Euler limits on them so they could only move up/down as well)…that gives you both up and down and left and right movement for the mouth and is the basis for the rest.
Once you understand how that works, put a target on the end of each “ud” bone as children of each “ud” bone. Then put bones in for each CP group around the mouth that you attach the actual geometry to…make these bones initially children of the head bone. Then, make an on/off pose where you put a “translate to” constraint set at 90% on each of the geometry bones to translate to each target. Then, to get the puckering/in/out movement of the lips, set up the system I described in my previous post:
The pucker mechanism is a bone that is set to scale itself smaller on the “Z” axis when the pose is at 100% (one for the upper one for the lower and one that is for both), on the end of that bone is a child target that moves outward from the mouth when the bone is scaled smaller. Inside the mouth is the parent bones for the upper and lower lip geometry bones…these have “translate to” constraints on them that translate them to the targets on the end of the scaling bones (with an offset on them) so that when the scaling bones scale smaller, the target bones move outward and the parent bones of the upper/lower/both lips move outward.
Set a mechanism like that up for the upper lip, then one for the lower lip, then make them the children of a mechanism that moves both of them…look in the rig file at the “puckerscaler” bone and it’s children for how the bones are parented, the “puckersetup”, “lips upper I/O”, “lower lip I/O” and “both lips I/O” relationships for how these are set up. Make the upper lip geometry bones the children of the upper pucker translating bone and the lower lip geometry bones the children of the lower pucker translating bone.
To tie the lower lip to the jaw, first, make a percentage pose for the mouth corners with “orient like” contraints on the corner “ud” and “lr” bones set at 50% tied to the jaw (with an offset) when the pose slider is 100% (name it “lipcornerstojaw”), then make another percentage pose with the lower “ud” and “lr” bones to “orient like” the jaw (with an offset) set at 100% and the “lipcornerstojaw” slider at 100% when the pose slider is at 100%.
The rest of the face movement is driven by the mouth setup…I added a target to each mouth corner “ud” bone and located them in the cheek area, made nostril bones set to “aim at” these targets, the cheek bones to “orient like” the nostril bones, and the ear bones to “orient like” the cheek bones…varying the percentages if necessary (the ear bones are set at an “orient like” of 24%). The jowl bones are set to “aim at” the same targets as the nostril bones.
Okay, I’ll stop…hopefully that gives you an adequate overview. For setting the “ud” and “lr” relationships, I wait until the geometry bones are in place and setup so that I can better determine what I want the limits to be. I’ll try to illustrate the process better in a tutorial, but this might be helpful until then.
Seriously though - maybe that isn’t complex to you, but to a newer guy like me…wow. I guess I undestand the theory. Anyway, I’ll keep my eye on this thread to see what you come up with. I’m still learning so this is a ways off for me anyway to be honest.