Facial Controllers

 Week 5

This week, the final week working on this rig, we went about making controllers, as well as creating Set Driven Keys.

I started by creating a simple circle for use as a face controller, I also created two smaller squares for the eyes. However, due to the background being a dark blue, these were hard to see.

To fix this, I changed the colour of the controllers, this was done by going into the attribute editor tab, and then underneath Drawing Overrides.



For the eyes, I set up Aim constraints, bound to the eye controllers, this meant that the eye would point at the controller, I repeated this for both of the controllers and both eyes.

I then created an oval and parented the eye controllers to this, this is because eyes often point in the same direction. The separate eye controllers still allowed for the eyes to move separately if needed however.

After the controllers, I then selected the face controller, and went about creating Set Driven Keys, this would allow for a simple slider to be used for expressions such as smiles etc.
First the attribute was added, with a minimum of 0 and a max of 10, a set drive key was then added, with the slider at 0, all of the joints were keyed. 

With the slider then set at 10, the joints were moved into position, and then all of the joints were keyed again. This allowed for the slider to be used to create these emotions, with the numbers between 0 and 10 serving as a way to get in between the extremes of the emotions.

Happy

Sad

Anger, in this one you can see how the weight painting on the left nostril was off.

I only created three Set Driven Keys because I quickly wanted to move on from this, because I was not enjoying this part at all. In hindsight, I should have spent more time on the weight painting, especially the lips, the joints were only influencing the outside of the lips, due to my completely forgetting of the inside.

For the emotions, I should have also included use of the rest of the face, rather than just the mouth and nose. This would have created more convincing emotions.

However, I am somewhat satisfied with what I have learned, rather than achieved, as I have learnt how better to weight paint a face, as well as create controllers. As well as these, I have also learnt how to use Set Driven Keys, a tool that has lots of potential, in all areas of rigging, from making muscles bulge to creating subtle movements.

Facial Weight Painting - The rest of the face

Week 4

This week, I focused on weight painting the rest of the face, this would include eyebrows, eyelids, eyelashes, the middle of the brow, the nostrils, the cheeks and the jowls.

I started with the cheek joints, these would mostly focus on the area round which the cheek bone is. 

I then moved onto the jowls. All of these weight paints were repeated on the other side of the face, however I figured not to show both sides as it's basically the same thing, only mirrored.

I then weight painted the nose.

As well as the nostrils.

I then weight painted the eyebrows, each eyebrow had three joints, however the influence was basically the same along the eyebrow.

Next I weight painted the eyelids. I felt that Malcolm (the name of the model) really suited this shade of eyeshadow. The eyelids were basically the same on the top as well as the bottom.

I then realised I hadn't created joints for the forehead, so using the same method I used to create the rest of the facial joints, I created three new joints for the forehead, one in the middle and one on either side.

Much like the eyebrows, the weight painting for the forehead was basically the same on all three joints.

Facial Weight Painting - Mouth

 Week 3

This week, we begin weight painting the model. Starting with the mouth, as this would be the most difficult and was the area with the most joints, as well as the most crucial part of the face to express emotion.

I started by binding the joints to the skin, and then rotated the jaw open slightly to see what I would need to remove influence to and add influence to other joints.

Once I had rotated, I was greeted with this monstrosity of nightmare fuel. To fix this, I began going over all the polys that were stuck to the top of the mouth, maxing the influence set by the Front Jaw joint.
 

After doing this for about an hour or so, I had made it look far more presentable. I could then go about weight painting the influence of the lip joints. I opted not to add tongue joints as this would make the rig more complicated than I would have liked. (And I'm not the most comfortable with weight painting.)

I went around the joints of the mouth, painting very similar influences, heavier closer to the joint with a blend of lower influence on the outside. I also did this with the jaw influence, as you can see in the screenshot above this one.

Facial Joints

Week 2

This week, we focused on setting up and placing facial joints ready for weight painting.
The number of joints on a face rig depends on what the animator wants to do, more complex animations will require more joints.

I started by placing joints around the mouth, nose, cheeks, eyebrows and cheeks. In total I had 24 joints.

Next, I had to connect the joints to the head, I had already done this with the mouth joints. 

I had accidentally added the joint influence to the skin of the model rather than connecting the joints to the head, this made the head of the model sink into the torso. While this was quite amusing, it wasn't what I wanted, so I Ctrl+Z to undo this. I had also named the facial joints with appropriate names.

To connect the joints to the head, I was having trouble using Parenting, but I found out that simply selecting all of the facial joints I had just created and then, while holding the Middle Mouse button, drag them under the Head joint in the hierarchy connected the joints exactly how I wanted. 

Facial Animation

 Week 1

Year 2 starts with facial rigging and animation, the first week was on facial shapes, these are emotions as well as phonemes for talking.

This module is one that I am not confident on due to not being completely comfortable with the weight painting.

An example of a phoneme can be shown below, the character is doing an "AE" phoneme:

The next facial pose we practised was an emotion, this is an example of happiness, I wanted to give a character a more subtle smile as these don't seem so forced in my opinion. I'm not completely happy with this, the eyebrows could've been made a little more angled upwards and the mouth being slightly more open and the bottom lip curled slightly in.

After attempting happiness/a smile, I tried to do a very annoyed emotion. I'm much more happy with how this one came out.