Cinema Standard Facial Rigging

#1

Hi,
I’m looking into creating a high-end facial rig to research the differences between emotions perceived in humans vs animations, requiring me to drive a realistic character mesh with intricate controls, similar to those in SoftImage’s Face Robot. Is anyone able to recommend some high quality reference for creating such a project? I’m still undecided on blend shapes vs bones and very much in the research and design phase.

Apologies if this is on the wrong board, if so please let me know and I’ll move it.

Thanks in advance,
Mike

#2

I plan to do the same thing with a 3ds Max bone-based facial rig. You should start researching and gathering material on the “Facial Action Coding System” developed by Paul Ekman, W.V. Friesen, and J.C. Hager.

#3

Yeah, Ekman’s FACS is a good place to start.

Jason Osipa’s Stop Staring is my go-to book for facial rigging. Most of the book covers blend shapes, but he does have a section covering bones because you don’t have to limit your option to one or the other. Your resulting rig might be a hybrid mix depending on your needs.

Brian Tindall’s The Art of Moving Points has been sitting on my wishlist for a while. It’s only available as an iBook though, so if you’re allergic to Apple products, you might want to skip it.

#4

Fantastic, thanks! I’ve already read Ekman’s What the Face Reveals, Emotions Revealed and Unmasking the Face. I’ve been loaned Stop Staring but I’m yet to read it.

I’ll see if I can get a copy of The Art of Moving Points, it might be a bit of a pain if it’s only accessible as an iBook though.