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Description

Pretty happy with this deformation.

Rather than using weights directly, I'm using a Laplacian deform modifier which does some great things. Actually, first I'm using a mesh deformer, the mesh for which is just a skin-modified string of edges.

Basic structure for the deform bones is a damped track->stretch to->locked track->copy X+Z scale, all of which ends up being a pain in the ass to make. Nor super painful, just tedious, would be good thing to script. Python book came from the library, haven't opened it yet though.

I'm not really sure if the mesh deformer is necessary. I need to do a little bit of testing to see how it works when I apply the facial armature directly to the face. After that, I need to see if I can translate the Laplacian deform into weights, probably by just dragging bones way out and weighting the face with linear gradients (normalizing afterwards).

Laplacian deform has some drawbacks. It doesn't handle boundaries well, and I have boundaries for my mouth and eyelids. (Maybe I should just make some transparent faces there?) The other issue is that there are some deformations when the modifier just poops out and the mesh flips to its undeformed position. That's not an issue if I turn poses into shapekeys, but I don't know if I could use facial poses with the bones and expect clean interpolation, it would require testing.

Teeth and tongue could use a little work to keep them inside the mouth regardless of deformation. That would probably involve separating them to a different armature so that I could shrinkwrap bones to my face mesh. So kind of a pain. Blender's intra-armature dependency issues are probably my biggest pain of late.

Description

Pretty happy with this deformation.

Rather than using weights directly, I'm using a Laplacian deform modifier which does some great things. Actually, first I'm using a mesh deformer, the mesh for which is just a skin-modified string of edges.

Basic structure for the deform bones is a damped track->stretch to->locked track->copy X+Z scale, all of which ends up being a pain in the ass to make. Nor super painful, just tedious, would be good thing to script. Python book came from the library, haven't opened it yet though.

I'm not really sure if the mesh deformer is necessary. I need to do a little bit of testing to see how it works when I apply the facial armature directly to the face. After that, I need to see if I can translate the Laplacian deform into weights, probably by just dragging bones way out and weighting the face with linear gradients (normalizing afterwards).

Laplacian deform has some drawbacks. It doesn't handle boundaries well, and I have boundaries for my mouth and eyelids. (Maybe I should just make some transparent faces there?) The other issue is that there are some deformations when the modifier just poops out and the mesh flips to its undeformed position. That's not an issue if I turn poses into shapekeys, but I don't know if I could use facial poses with the bones and expect clean interpolation, it would require testing.

Teeth and tongue could use a little work to keep them inside the mouth regardless of deformation. That would probably involve separating them to a different armature so that I could shrinkwrap bones to my face mesh. So kind of a pain. Blender's intra-armature dependency issues are probably my biggest pain of late.