Digital Tutors - Blend Shape-Based Facial Rigging in Maya

Duration 5h 1m Project Files Included MP4

In this series of Maya tutorials, you'll learn production-proven facial rigging techniques

for animation. We'll start by building a facial skeleton. We'll then cover time-saving

binding and weight-painting techniques.

From there, we'll begin setting up control objects and Blend Shapes that will allow animators to produce natural and appealing facial expressions while having fun with the control rig.

Along the way we'll learn how to attach objects to a deforming mesh, we'll learn how to

troubleshoot common issues one might come across during the construction of the rig, and also learn how to script tools using both Python and MEL to improve our efficiency.

By the end of this Maya training, you'll be equipped with the knowledge you need to set up

your own facial rigs.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Checking the model's topology and building core facial joints

3. Setting up joints for the nose, ears, and teeth

4. Mirroring joints in Maya

5. Creating joints for the tongue

6. Creating an alignment tool

7. Creating an alignment tool with Python

8. Controlling the eyes

9. Deforming the eyelids

10. Connecting the facial skeleton to the character's body and skinning the face

11. Refining skin deformations

12. Squashing and stretching the mouth

13. Finishing our squash and stretch system for the mouth

14. Progress check: deformations

15. Rigging the eyebrows

16. Creating a system to drive the deformations of the eyebrows

17. Creating a system that will deform the eyebrow geometry

18. Creating Blend Shapes for brow deformations

19. Mirroring Blend Shapes

20. Creating a Blend Shape-mirroring tool with Python

21. Finishing the setup of our eyebrow targets

22. Deforming the hair

23. A fast and effective way of simulating fleshy eyes

24. A flexible neck rig

25. Setting up a neck control

26. Controlling the character's head

27. Twisting the neck

28. Dynamically parenting the head control

29. Creating a jaw control

30. Driving the brows

31. Finishing our brow rig

32. Adding ear controls

33. Controlling the nose

34. Controlling the tongue

35. Finishing our tongue controls

36. Teeth controls

37. Eye controls

38. Dynamically parenting the eye controls to follow the character's head

39. Wrapping up our work on the eyelids

40. Hair controls

41. Creating phonemes for facial animation

42. Mirroring our phoneme and exploring other facial shapes

43. Creating a facial GUI

44. Connecting our facial shapes to the GUI

45. Finalizing the rig

46. Attaching objects to a deforming model