Dynamic Wrinkle Maps

HarlequinWerewolf

Hey! I am a complete beginner to UE4, I just picked it up about 2 weeks ago. I've used Unity a bit and have some very basic coding knowledge so with all of that I wanted to try out UE4 and the Blueprint system. I had recently played TellTales Batman series and, from my limited knowledge, they seemed to be blending normal maps based on character expressions - wrinkle maps. So I wanted to give this a go and take a minute to get hands on with UE4. 

I wrote up my process over on ArtStation and thought I would give it a share here if anyone has any information that I missed and could help me in the future. It's a lot of text but I tried to break it down as best I could as I was approaching the process purely from an artist's point of view. I know there are things I could improve upon right from the actual blendshape/morph target creation through to the textures brought into the engine, so if I try this again, I know there are ways I could do better!

Check it out on ArtStation

Obscura

I have some thoughts on this if you don't mind, and some extra info. The parameters do NOT need to be driven from blueprints. They can work automatically without blueprints assistance, if you enable a small checkbox next to the anim curve. I think its called material curve. Then if you have a scalar parameter with the same name existing in the material as the anim curve, it will auto update. Also, from my experience, a full stretch and a full compress normal map can be enough so the amount of normal maps can be drastically reduced. So You have one where the face shows compressed expression, and one that shows full stretch. Then you can use masks (like you did) to blend in the stretch or compress on the area you want.

HarlequinWerewolf

Well I feel like a bit of an idiot! Took me a minute to find the checkbox you were talking about and then I made a copy of the material and did what you said. Works exactly the same. Can't believe how complicated I had made it! 

I knew I could make the normal maps better optimised but I hadn't thought about doing full scrunch and stretch maps, that would be far more efficient. 

Thank you so much for the advice. I really want to spend more time learning UE4 in the New Year so it's great to know I can always get advice on here