Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Note
When blend shapes morph from one shape to another, the vertices follow
a linear path. This won't work for elements that rotate, so we'll leave the
eyeballs with the main body, controlling them with joints instead.
5.
Now you need to weld all the duplicate vertices that lie in the same place; this
stops the mesh from tearing as it moves. Select all the vertices of the combined
face, and go to Edit Polygons > Merge Vertices and set the value to a small number
(say,
0.0001
).
Double-check that coincident vertices are indeed merged and that areas with delib-
erately small gaps (like the mouth) were not inadvertently merged.
6.
Center the pivot for the face (Modify > Center Pivot). This will make it easier to
manipulate later.
7.
The face is now its own object and perfect for creating Kila's blend shapes. Delete
the history on both the separated face and body geometry.
8.
Unhide the hair; then combine all the other pieces that make up her body, includ-
ing the eyes and belt. You could at this stage hide the face to make this step easier.
9.
Weld the vertices around the ear and hairline with a small value like
0.0001
.
10.
Finally, delete the history on the body.
The mesh is now ready for generating face shapes. Move the geometry for both the face
and the bodyback inside the Kila4095 folder in the Outliner.Then rename the bodyto Kil-
aBody and the face to KilaFace. Save the file as Kila_Combined.mb.
With the face detached and the rest of the body combined, we can start to build up our lib-
rary of face shapes.
Generating Face Shapes
Creating blend shapes is a simple task involving nothing more than editing vertices. The
faces we create will essentially be the same as the poses we generated for the joint-based
facial rig.
To start, we will generate the Ahh shape so that we can test the mouth before continuing
on to create shapes that will animate the eyelids and eyebrows. We will then create the O,
L, MPB, FV, Ooo, Smile, and Frown shapes. You will notice that, unlike the joint-based
facialsetup,wedon'tcreatefaceshapesforCDENSZandAKI.Sincewearelimitedinthe
overall number ofblend shapes we can use, we will use the Ahhand Smile shapes together
