Facial rig help suitable for games
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Hi guys, new here
I am about to start my final year uni project. Using 3ds Max, I have planned to rig and animate emotion on a 3D face that can be imported into game engines (Unreal, maybe Unity). The rig needs to combine bones (head, jaw, neck, eyes) and morph targets for the facial expressions. I have very little experience rigging heads (have done bodies before) and I am finding it difficult to find resources and tutorials that are suitable for what I need. There are lots for rigging a head for films or just general animation, and I am unsure where to start as I have been told to make morph targets first before adding bones, but some tutorials start off with some bones already set up.
Has anyone got any tips or resources that can help me achieve what I need to do?
Cheers,
Adam
I am about to start my final year uni project. Using 3ds Max, I have planned to rig and animate emotion on a 3D face that can be imported into game engines (Unreal, maybe Unity). The rig needs to combine bones (head, jaw, neck, eyes) and morph targets for the facial expressions. I have very little experience rigging heads (have done bodies before) and I am finding it difficult to find resources and tutorials that are suitable for what I need. There are lots for rigging a head for films or just general animation, and I am unsure where to start as I have been told to make morph targets first before adding bones, but some tutorials start off with some bones already set up.
Has anyone got any tips or resources that can help me achieve what I need to do?
Cheers,
Adam
Replies
In the past, I usually started with bones, and use the bones to help make morph targets. But these days our character guys use zBrush to make all the morphs really fast. The bones you called out are typically joint driven because in game the programmers like to point the head / eyes at stuff.
Also make sure your facial topology has the major guide loops. It'll make morphs and joint deformation much easier.
http://basic3dtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/3D_topology.png
This might get you on your way: http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1378-Facial-Rigging-for-Games-in-3ds-Max
There's also this one. Looks like it goes over incorporating morphs aswell. Might be worth a subscription for the info. http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/176-Facial-Rigging-in-3ds-Max
And another one.....
I'm now attempting to set up my morph targets... As said, the project is to show emotion, so should I create morph targets of different emotions, or set up the phonemes and eyebrow raise/lower etc?
1. Morphs for phonemes and eye/lid/brow poses.
2. Morphs for explicit emotions. (Happy, Sad, ect..)
3. Morphs for in game actions. (Holding Breath, Death)
We figured out that just a morph wasn't enough to convey emotion. You need a full animation on the face. So we setup facial animation to layer on top of the characters regular animations. In the following the face is morphs, and the ears, nose, and tufts are bones.
Character gets angry when an enemy is near.
Character ogles he sees a point of interest.
Love that animation btw
It wasn't that many morphs. There were only about 9 phonemes (called visemes). 9 expressions, and 6 gameplay related morphs.
Cheers