Maya character blendshapes


#1

Hi,

Its been a while since i’ve done character facial blendshapes.

The way I have done them before is by having the head geo separate to the rest of the body, the base of neck would be hidden underneath a shirt. Basic and simple way without waste.

However I would like to keep body and head together as one mesh… so is it a good idea to extract faces of the head for the duplicates to create the various facial blendshapes or do i need to keep the entire mesh as a whole and duplicate that numerous times.

If i can extract head from body then how would I then create the blendshape node since its a specific region now that has been altered.

There are loads of youtube vids on blendshapes like this but they’re all just floating heads since the base geo used is also a floating detached head. Haven’t come across a tutorial so far that covers head and body as one mesh.

Hope what I’m trying to ask makes sense.
Thanks.


#2

take a look at the new features in maya 2016 extension…
if you havnt millions of poly in your mesh it should be fine to keep everything together…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGGD8KjHkM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAwYfoB7gL0


#3

Thanks for those links.
Some really neat and quick features there. Haven’t used 2016 yet, I’ll have to get up to speed on more of their new features for when i finally get my hands on it.


#4

and there is the tool from Ingo…
http://www.braverabbit.com/shapes/

and the morph node in SOup… a production proven blendshape solution…
http://www.soup-dev.com/examples2_1.htm