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Maya Tips

 

BlendShape Targets (Shortcut for making R and L derivatives of a face expression)

After Making 20 facial expressions which morphs both sides of my character's face, the next task was to break most of the blendshapes targets into blendshapes targets which morph the right and left sides separately (e.g. eye brow raise right and eye brow raise left). It would take way too long to re-sculpt two the expressions for both sides. This is the short cuts I used:

1) After you weight the blendshape target as you like it. Make a copy of your face.

2) Add this new face to your blendshape targets (Deform>EditBlendShape>Add). Rename it in the Blend Shape control window noting (R or Right in the name). Then repeat this step for the left side.

3) If you have a lot of blendshape targets to break up into left and right side blendshape targets, I recommend making a right and left weighted template which you can import in and out of the PaintBlendShapeWeight Tool.

3a) Select one of your Targets in the PaintBlendShapeWeight Tool to create your templates from. Choose Paint Operation of Replace and select a Paint weight value of 0. Click on the Flood button.

3b) Next paint in the Right Side of the face with a weight value of 1. Make sure to get all the nooks and crannies. This leaves your morphing only active on the Right side of your face. To avoid inbetween weights values, set your brush to the "Solid" profile.

( If you have an edge going down the dead center of your face, leave those points weighted as 0, it will be helpful to use as a blend between the 1 and 0 points running down the face.)

3c) In the Export section, click the export, leaving the export options at their default setting. And, Viola! You now have a template to help you quickly paint the weights only for the right side. Now, repeat these steps to create a template for the left side.

4) Now take the copied blendshape object created in step one and add it twice more into your blendshape creating two more blendsahpe targets(Deform>EditBlendShape>Add). Make sure to rename them in the BlendShape Control window as you create them or you will get a duplicate name error.

5) Now use your weighting templates to quickly weight new blendshapes for right and left side expressions of the face.

6) When you import these weight templates, set Paint Operation to Replace. Afterwards, set the paint operation to smooth and flood the face a couple of times. This maintatins a natural deformation between the morphing side and the non-morphed side during animation.

 

Tools:Maya 7.0, Photoshop 7.0, CS, Premiere Pro, After Effects


 


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Tools:Maya 7.0, Photoshop 7.0, CS, Premiere Pro, After Effects