Head for rigging practice
 

Hey guys, been a while (again).

Thought i'd build up a head to have a go with bone rigging.

Just finished sticking in the lip bones, going to get to work on brow cheeks and eyes next. Will have some pics of the deformation when i've got them in.

Fix the bottom of the chin, make it pop out a little more, I am not sure if you were going for style with the nose, but it seems a little to sharp.

Hey Kerosene

Interesting thread, and more so a current topic with myself right now. Are you using th hypereal Facial rigging dvd from Alias for this?

I have that particular dvd and its awsome. I did give it some thought a while ago whether to bone/use joints for the facial deformations, but myself I still prefer the more traditional blend shapes. Reason for this is that you can sculpt any expression knowing that the mesh is going to deform to a given shape at one time, also enabling me to mix others as well. With the joints I think it puts a limit on what will become 'realistic' in terms of deformation. The joints will have to be placed practically everywhere and more importantly correctly in order to achieve a good result. Also bear in minfd that the mesh needs to be built correctly in terms of loops around the face where underlying muscle will be. Ive attched an image of my latest work and its shapes for you to peruse and see what you're getting yourself into. I hope it helps


Jay

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5089/blends5bf.jpg

Thanks Jay, I'm a real admirer of your work. Your job as Simplymaya's edgeloop preacher helped me in leaps and bounds when i started modelling last year ;)

I know that bone placement is going to have to be many and accurate, and i've got some plans on how to do it. will have to see if i can knock up a concept in photshop see what you think.

However, I think that with some good control structures, those many bones can be controlled with relative ease. Placing set driven keys on group nodes to produce scrubable "blend shapes" adds that further level of automation, but with the added benefit of precision alteration at any stage of the deformation.

Unfortunately, I'm in my third year at uni so alias DVD's are way beyond my price bracket. But between here and the CG forums theres some real good info and advice on where to take this.

Again, thanks for the time. Keep me posted on how ur finding it and i'll do the same.

Ad

Though I too still like the old blendshape method, I really like facial rigging with bones too. So go for it, I think I never really use it as much because I've never needed to create extremely versatile and realistic facial deformation but I'm sure it will be used a lot more in the future.

Anyway, I trust you have seen this before

Here we go.

Red are joints, green showing parenting. the line of the nose is mainly point holders, and i feel there may be a few more of them when i'm done. Generally I feel that the brow and lip area should be relatively easy. Its the cheeks that really, right from the edge of the nose, mouth, eyes and jaw. Its such a area and volume that deforms in many directions. I was looking at the possiblilty of using spline IK to produce a "stretchy" joint system attached to the jaw. The points of the line can be clustered and controlled for additional manipulation.

Of course I could just be letting myself in for a whole heap of trouble. Considering the amount of joints that would be needed as a minimum for control, this rig really needs to be binding efficient. editing weights would be a nightmare...

hey, where did your image go??
this is one thread i will be visiting often. i recently made a head model just for the purpose of making a bone driven face rig. but, i couldn't quite figure it out, and there was other stuff that needed attention....
but i want to get back to it once again, so i would really like to see your step by step progress.
so, where did that image go??

i think joints give a more realistic result, just take longer to set up.
a- u have assymetrical deformation, the right side doesnt always look exactly like the left side of face, which is more realistic and "non-linear"
b- joints rotate in a perfect arc, whereas blendshapes have a linear motion, for instance a blink blendshape would probably require an in-between blend shape to properly go over an eyeball, a joint can simply be rotated perfectly over the eyeball.
c- with joints u can have a pivot to freely move around to get different motion all the time, which is realistic, since humans dont make the same exact movements twice.

d- with a joint facial rig, u are still free to add blendshapes over your rig and use joints movements to alter them all u want; and also u can create anumber of heirarchy of groups with the joints and create tons of set driven keys for tons of poses.

but that really takes time and a good team of TDs to set up.

Vlad (just my ten pence, Im not having a go here)

No No,

To assume blend shapes to be symetrical in this way is slightly ignorant in the fact that unless you are snapping each point or giving values from one vertex to the next. IMHO would be an absolute waste of time spent.

Eyballs:You dont necessarily have to create an in between for the blink for the perfect arc as eyeballs arent perfectly round and if you know what you're doing this doesnt come into it.

But this is not to say dont use in betweens as they are most useful for 'Sticky' lip edges in particular.

A mix of the two is great, joints and blends, it will take time and effort on your part to do it so be ready for some long hours in the chair!!

Bear in mind the geometry that you'll be using as well, is there enough detail or are you going to animate a displacement map thru an SDK at any given expression. Lots to think about before plunging in.

At the end of the day you need to decide what is best for the end result.

Cheers
Jay

Hhmmm... no image above, missed that one. anyways, here it is.