Facial Animation Setup - Game Character Development with Maya - page 806

1. Open up the file Kila_MainRig.mb and, using the visibility controller we added in
Chapter 12 , turn off all the icons.
2. Switch to the side view, and hide her hair and the main skeleton so you can con-
centrate on her face. Turn the geometry layer visibility to Template.
3. Using the Joint tool found in the Skeleton menu, place Kila's jawbone as shown in
Figure 13.1a . Call the first joint Jaw, and the second Jaw_Tip.
FIGURE 13.1a-c Place the joints that will animate the left side of Kila's face.
4. Place three joints that will control her tongue, using the actual tongue geometry to
guide you. Call these TongueBase, TongueMiddle, and Tongue_Tip, before parent-
ing TongueBase to the Jaw joint ( Figure 13.1b ).
5. Following Figure 13.1c , place two single joints in exactly the same place as the
eye joint. (You will need to make the base skeleton visible again for this step. Set it
to Reference, so that you will be able to snap the new joints to the ones on the base
skeleton.)
We need the eyelids to follow the same rotations as the eyes, so these joints need to
be in the same position as the eye joint. Use the Point Snap tool to position them
correctly, and call them L_UpperLid and L_LowerLid.
6. Add three separate joints around her lips, placing one at the top, one at the corner
of her mouth, and a final one on the lower lip ( Figure 13.1d ). Call these
L_UpperLip, L_OuterLip, and L_LowerLip.