When researching into various different ways to approach facial rigging there were multiple resources to work from.
I could have a joint driven setup and apply the techniques used in Tim Callaway’s and Judd Simantov’s rigging lesson’s
Tim Callaway – Joint Setup
Judd Simantov – Joint Setup
It could also have a Blendshape driven setup as demonstrated by Delano Athias in his series.
However, researching further into the topic it became clear that a popular setup among artists within the industry was a facial rig system that used both joints and blend shapes. With this method you can get the core/primary facial poses using blend-shapes and then make refinements to the face using the joints.
I came across a facial rigging series from a TD – Rigger called Bjorn Blaabjerg who’s portfolio demonstrates a large variety of awesome looking character rigs.
The series covers the following:
- Setting up the facial GUI
- Sculpting Blendshapes
- Connecting both Facial Controls and BlendShapes
- Developing a joint driven lip setup
- Squash and Stretch on the head
- Fleshy Eyes
- Lip Compression
- Using wrap deformers to connect additional mesh objects to follow the face
As demonstrated above, this facial rig setup allows for a wide variety of expression and character to be added to our animation, it’s also suitable for lip syncing which is a must for our project.
Computer GENERATED 