Facial Controls Rig (?)

#1

I’ve seen some amazing facial rigs around that look very useful and convenient for acting animation, mostly Maya rigs but some 3ds Max, like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGzgF-DafWg

It shows the controls near the end of the video. That whole rig looks pretty great, but I’m primarily interested in the face. Why can’t I find any tutorials in books or online even remotely covering this way of rigging? I’ve searched a lot, but just can’t find anything about facial controls. I’d like to be able to use, and better yet, learn how to make a good rig for a fully acting CG character. Morph targets just look frustrating and irrelevant in comparison. (I tried it a few times)

Are there any tutorials that I’ve missed? I’m not sure I even know what to properly call it. If I were to guess about that video I posted, they’re just arbitrary splines resembling the face that have constraints to certain vertices of the model. Am I right or wrong?

#2

Hi there,
From the video I would guess the same. There are many different ways to get a nice face rig. Paul Neale’s DVD on facial rigging does a great job on demonstration some of these. You could have a complex stretchy bone system sitting under the skin with the controls off to the side controlling their positions. You can bind vertices to an arbitrary object with LinkedXForm Modifier which could be used instead of bones. (Although this sort of system would benefit from a script instead of multiple LinkedXForms, can’t recall how Paul did it on his DVDs) Or, you can use multiple morph targets where their weights are controlled by the external helpers just like in the video.

Personally, I like morph targets because you can sculpt the individual poses allowing for some great expressions. I also find the turn around time to be a little quicker for me. I will be putting up a simple eye rig tutorial that goes into a little of this in the next few weeks (sorry, but insanely busy at the moment), but I would highly recommend Paul Neale’s “Intermediate Rigging 4” DVD.

Cheers

E.

#3

Thanks a lot. :slight_smile: I look forward to the eye rig tutorial (patiently).

#4

You can find a few tutorials on creating custom UI controls and using them for eye rotations and blending morph targets. Basically, the foundation of most facial rigs. Hope it helps. :slight_smile:

http://lounge.ego-farms.com/forumdisplay.php?f=44

#5

From the looks of that, it’s using pretty much the same system that Paul Neale covers in his CG-Academy videos.

Those splines control points/locators which have stretchy bones attached to them, and the face is skinned to the bones.

Making those control shapes is pretty much just grabbing the spline tool and drawing it out, you can then limit the movements of these etc.

As for looking into the best setups, I’ve found a combination of bones and morph targets to be the best. With corrective morph targets as well to help things through some!

Hope that helps some

  • Stu
#6

Thanks this was actually very usefull, I can finaly dedicate some time to finishing one of my rigs for good.

#7

Wow, thanks! I tried out the blending morph targets tutorial, and it’s just exactly what I wanted to learn about. Although some of the wire parameter controls seem to be different in my Max (9) than in the tutorial, and I can’t assign another direction to the X or Y position. I’ll have to look at it again later to see if I’ve made some mistakes… if not I’ll troubleshoot.

Once again, your tutorials are a lifesaver. :buttrock:

#8

thanks vyntax … yes i totaly agree with vyntax the combination of bones and the morph targets are the best … if you are still looking for some thing … i hav made a facial rig test will upload that to my site soon that may help you out…

#9

For the most part I prefer the blended target system with a few bones as well. how ever I have done many rigs with just bones and had a lot of luck with them. Of of the advantages is that I can create one rig and drop it into just about any character, within reason. And then just skin up the face. You need to be very good and skinning and I think that is where people run into problems for the most part with a bones based system. My 3rd DVD covers skinning quite well.

#10

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