Blender 4.0 Facial Animation with NO RIGGING!
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- Опубликовано: 15 июл 2024
- Shape Key Selector is OUT NOW!
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Example Head Mesh download:
bit.ly/3QuBdUd
This tutorial walks through the set up of a "rig" that uses images to drive the value of shape keys. This allows you to easily choose your character's expression from an intuitive visual menu and all you need to do is create shape keys for your character. No rigging required!
To follow along with the future development of Shape Key Selector, follow me on Twitter/X! / vertex_arcade
00:00 Introduction
01:13 Creating character shape keys
05:02 Setting up the Images and Selector
09:55 Drivers Explanation
11:01 Setting up the Drivers
13:36 Animating 
Кино
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In my opinion the best workflow as an animator reside in the mix and match of both. You animate with bones, then you add the icing on top of the cake using shape keys.
Maybe do that the other way around? Might be better to get general placement of expressions and then fine tune things with bones
@@Violn95 You have it backwards, with bones you can put the face in any position without limits but it’s missing finer detail like smile lines for example which is why you use a shapekey on top to fix any issues or add little details like that since they excel at fine detail and specific shapes
Video games (for hardware performance purposes) do use shapekeys for the entire face but that can run into the issue of shapekeys not interacting well together and creating artifacts that are difficult to find and diagnose beforehand. You also need a TON of shapekeys to make the facial expressions not look repetitive, 52 is a common number of shapekeys and that’s a ton of work just to mimic what bones do for a fraction of the work
@@SymbolCymbals2356 sorry, I did have that backwards
+1
It always depends on your goals. For game engines, I prefer focusing on bones first because it gives much more control.
shape key rigging is how you create photorealistic facial animations. It doesn't end up choppy because you can blend all of the shape keys together at the same time. You can even use apple ar or any facial tracking but you do need to create at least 52 blendshapes which takes forever :((((
However, this method of rigging the shape keys uses the distance to the images, so as the selector moves over the images it turns on any shape keys it passes over, that's what causes the "choppy" animation in this instance.
try Face it addon
Wow! I never imagined shape keys being used so effortlessly and conveniently. They've always been a bit of a hassle to work with, especially when dealing with a large number of them. However, this approach changes the game entirely.
personally i would recommend both rigged and shapekeyed .. shapekeyed for expressions and the rigged for subtle after motions with bendy bones (dynamic phone or physbones)
Yeah, that's a valid approach!
I really appreciate this, I was waiting for this tutorial.
It's a game changer for the "Stylized Look" that this method can add on expression...Thanks for sharing your awesome work!
I'm going to save this video to come back to in the future, this seems really useful! Thanks for making it
OML what a savior. cant imagine how on earth you figured out how to do all this but glad you did!
Omg this is insane was tearing my hair out at how daunting face animation was this deserves an award, amazing tutorial and reignited the flame for animating please keep making these tutorials! ❤
This is awesome! I really like how you explain some steps so we learn how everything actually works and not just how to use everything!
I appreciate that you took the time to make a tutorial on how to do something, while not just shoving a addon down our throats. Like- “This Method requires this addon, and can only be done with this addon.”
Absolutely stunning man!
I’ll go an support you when I can! Even if I don’t plan on using the addon version.
Awesome, I'm buying the add-on, the work put on explaining and creating it is just superb.
Thank you!
Ive never seen this method explained more clearly, excellent video 👍
This is life changing knowledge for me!! I had no idea it can be done in that way!
This is a really hard topic to explain in such a clear way. Great work!!
this was a very helpful video and lesson. Shape key driver setup is so nice looking being able to have a preview of the emotion is very handy
10:48 you have cleared my doubt on a whole another level especially about the drivers
That's just awesome! Thank you so much for the lesson!
This extremely high quality. It helps so much thank you !!!
Very nicely presented!
Wow that's an amzing tutorial, well done.
its the MOST underrated thing ive ever seen
This is so cool! Thank you for sharing this amazing tool!
This is a really good tutorial!! Super clear thank youuu
Awsome!! great applied for expression
a very useful tutorial, thank you!
It's a great video! Thanks for helping a lot!
I'm new to blender. I don't fully get it now but I know I'll understand it later.
Thank you very much.
Thanks you so much for this tutorial!
You are God-sent. BIG THANK YOU.
it's great
it really is.
Magnificent!
Great work! Subbed!
This really got me thinking too. I mostly do abstraction and motion graphics, zero character work. This same method might work with a selector that's being randomly moved via geometry nodes. This might be a workflow for creating seemingly greater variation between multiplied models...
The models I'm working on won't benefit from this, but I'm still listening just because this guy has a really soothing voice
Very informative. Helped a lot
I was wondering this thing ! thanks
Super awesome!!! 💖💖
great tutorials
Wow, it's super.
this is fire
omg that adon is gonna be a life saver....
me.. animating complex facial motion with about 20 RAW blendshapes. no bone drivers... just the raw shapekey values 🙃
10 out of 10
Awesome! Thank youuuu....
This method is everywhere in VRchat. Very easy to use!
massive props for making a tutorial on how to set the basic version of the addon you made up yourself while explaining how the addon works and can be used. just truly amazing!
im an indie dev and not yet very fluent in animation. what are the potential downsides of shapekey animation in a stylized context?
awesome tutorial✌, shape key or morphing workflow has been around forever in other 3d programs its very good not just for faces, blender has it too but most people will just use that default bone face rig thingy
That's an amazing addon but you really should show people how to go through and make one of these stylized models for this. Cause I would love to do this cause it seems a lot easier than 3d facial expression modelling, but I have no idea how to make these.
I'll add it to my list of videos to make!
@@VertexArcade Please do! These stylized models would be much easier for people to make than more detailed ones!
Nice!
lovely, i have to (re)build this :-)
Огромное спасибо
you are really Osm man
Id imagen if you want more controll and to smoothly blend the shapes, instead of bringing the selecter to the shapes, bring the shapes to the selecter.
You can probably set it up so all the images are in a circle around the selecter, and just bring them in towards the middle to turn on and off those indervisual shapes.
Then there is no need to worry about passing over blendshapes to get to another, or mixing ones on oposit sides ^-^
Id imagen it could be made as a "base" in like a clock shape, then you only need to add the shapekeys that are in use for that part (say the eyes) and you can leave whatever is spare blank, just changing the shape its blending and the plain's texture to indicate the shape. ^o^
I have to try this!!
Awesome video! Two things:
1. Despite the couple negative comments about the method. This is EXACTLY what I needed for my project, which did NOT need the complexity of rig. Simple. Straightforward. Got me to my objective way faster than I thought. THANKS.
2. I love the model style of the black hair model in this video. Did you make this from scratch? Can you do a video how to make something like this?
i like this in principle (it's similar to blendspaces in game engines), but by using snap, you're basically robbing yourself. you could easily smoothly blend between multiple shape keys by arranging each section in a 2d space and have no snapping, thus creating basically an infinite variation in face shapes, which would work for both cartoony and realistic animation :)
You Should do a thing showing from opening blender to getting to the point where you can edit the face...
minor nitpick, but no, this isn't how most 2d animation is done, i know that you didn't mean anything bad by it, but by reducing the painstaking process of hand-drawn 2d animation to "picking and choosing" you're kinda contributing to the idea of "the computer does everything" which i know that as an animator you're annoyed by too.
anyway, I think the reason a lot of animators like to have this absolute control over their work is that, unlike real life, every frame should be controlled, handled carefully and generally be pleasing to look at. this mindset is what leads to great moving pictures that also look like great normal pictures.
I completely understand, I didn't mean to undersell the 2D process, I was mostly talking about the tween style animation that it widely used in TV shows on a tight schedule. Hand drawn animation is definitely its own art form
Bro went and created an animation editor with models...
And, its probably universal! lol This dude went omega brain.
Woooooooooooooooow!
On the refrain of "shape keys animate linearly" - they don't have to. You can set interpolation of a driver to be non-linear, as well as just non-linear for set keyframes.
Great tutorial! Any plans on making a video on how to make stylized faces like this?
Rigging isn't my strong suit so probably not. I can make stylised models, but rigging them correctly for animation just isn't my forte. If I really needed to rig a face I would just use something like the FaceIt addon that generates one automatically
Yeah we use to learn facial animation like that on 3DS max, it's called morpher in Max like in morphing. very easy and user friendly but efectively less realistic on realistic caracter.
Just note that this will not work with more complex faces, as shape keys animate linearly, and thus cannot make curved movements.
For example, a model with giant eyes, where lids need to be rotated down to close - would clip through eye balls if done with shape keys.
Yeah, although you can get creative with the way you make shape keys. If I ever needed some curved motion, I would create an intermediate shape key, and then blend from the open blink to the intermediate then to the closed blink, it's a little more work, but it is possible.
I've seen some videos where people actually separate the XYZ coordinates of a shape key and then animate them using drivers. It's not the most flexible approach but it can be done
Cool addon but I can't work with face rigs only using blendshapes, it's too repetitive and all the blending is linear. Adding bones on top of blendshapes can make sure that you're hitting your nicely sculpted poses but you can give more variety by offseting things using the bones, and you can create nice arcs for things like mouth transitions.
Yeah, there's a preferred use case for this and that would be very stylised choppy animation that doesn't necessarily require blending between frames. You could get creative with the shape keys though, like in these examples. It's a different way of thinking about animation but I think there's use cases for both methods. ruclips.net/video/439OBQl7Pb8/видео.htmlsi=68uqAKIyMky01dcy&t=695
Gonna head to sleep after This xD:
Just Search: live2d mouth chart
Repetive Hell Yea!: But "Bad Results cause of X Reason" i disagree... since Live2D uses a Very Similar Workflow which can get Very Smooth Results if Done Propertly...
(and Yes i know there are Differences between them but its Close Enough that you can probably get a Really Good Result just Using them...)
I'm pretty sure Minecraft Story Mode did something with the Mouths. Is this similar?
Great tutorial!
Will your addons work fine on newest Blender version?
Thanks. Good method but as you said, the selector moving between expressions can mess up the transition, touching unwanted expressions in the process. Also, if your selector is an object and not a bone, then the animation won't port properly to game engines.
my brother in christ this *is* a rig
Bro make some character tutorial like this head plss
Heyy I LOVE your Gwen Spider-Verse Model! How do you add the 2D lines for the facial expressions??? a tutorial on that would be sooo awesome! thank you! SUBED.
They're just tiny meshes that I put in front of the model! I'm actually making a tutorial on it right now! Different ways to get line art and I cover that method!
@@VertexArcade Omg no way!? Thank you sm, I am so excited! Ive been looking for a tut on this forever!
Deffinately looks like the style I want to use. Can I put in my own svg files, and swap them for different character setups?
Do you mean the images? Yeah, you can set up any character with shape keys and they can have their own set of images that match to them, then you can have more characters with separate shape keys and separate rigs
Hello! I practice realtime animation in blender and have been looking for somewhat of a puppeteer tool for it. Daz3d has the best one but this interests me. Does this work on bones? Can I store multiple poses and then blend between them?
Awesome!!!! Please, someone build a plugin of this
Well.... I did! blendermarket.com/products/shape-key-selector
After I enter the key frames and values for both points on the my 3rd mouth driver it makes the purple number of the driver into 0.716 instead of 1 and the expression is not fully displayed when the selector is on top of it. I changed the transform space to local space and that seemed to fix it but do you think this will cause me problems later?
Is that Lois Noceda Lane for the example head mesh lmao
Just a quick question. How did you get the mouth to open?
Yoooo How did you make that spiderverse material for gwen? Not like the hatching or halftone but like the base material used on her face?
It's just a basic toon shader, mix a diffuse shaded into a shader to rgb node, then using a color ramp you can control the sharpness of the shadows
thank you!@@VertexArcade
How do I make that circle thing that deforms the mesh appear? I'm on edit mode and I don't know what you're using
Can you make a vid showing how to use your add on plzz
Hey where is that gwen model from? Need it
Ive seen a video explaining this but this video seems much more detailed wbich i love. Question...would it be good to use this process set up for facial animations this way for Games. Im creating a game and need facial animations. Would shapekey facial animation be better used for film and poses or would you be able to use them in game engines
Yeah, shape keys to control facial animation is definitely an easy way to do facial animation. Most game engines can read shape keys/morphs/blendshapes, so if you have them as part of your regular animation (walk/run etc) then the face will be animated as well!
@VertexArcade amazing would it be easier to use this method for games then using the rigging face method?
I would say yes. It all depends on the style of animation and game. For a game that focuses on the characters faces a lot, you might need the extra control of the a proper rig, but if the game is more simple and the facial animation isn't going to be complex, then that would be the easier method
@VertexArcade amazing and prompt response so thank you soo soo much. Moulding the face this way seems fun also and freeing to make it exactly how you want then a face rig. I'll have a look at the addon also when I get to the animation stage of face for my game. Loooove this and subscribed from me and liked. Will check your other videos out
Is there a way to have 2 selectors for 1 driver of a facial expression? I try to add another selector for a driver of a facial expression and while the new selector works, it overwrites the previous selector and the previous selector no longer works. I would have to delete the second selector so the original selector can work again.
I want to achieve this so I can mix multiple face expressions at one time.
So say I have 2 mouth expressions, one is Smiling and one is Angry. I want to mix them both together at full values and I don't think I can achieve this with only 1 selector.
Any insight? Thanks for your time.
The only way to do that would be to have 2 images overlapping, so one for your smile and angry, and then do the same driver setup, so as you move the selector it will activate both of them. The only other way would be to make a new combined shape key that's Angry Smile using the Shape Key Mix option
@@VertexArcade Got it, that makes sense. Thanks again for your time!
I hope you eventually make a V2 with smoothing
What do you mean by smoothing?
14:25:@@VertexArcade
Is there any other software out there that has these inbuilt?! Like C4D, Maya, 3DS Max, etc?
No, this is a custom built setup for Blender. I've never used the other programs so you might be able to set it up but this driver and shape key method is Blender only
Great video, the technical part lost me a bit. Guess I need to thoroughly research drivers before attempting to touch this.
I did what u did but for some reason, it doesn't have a mixed expression instead went from the expression then the default then the expression what should I do.
how many more times are we going to reinvent blend shapes
OK! But you don't explained how to do left/right parts of mimic separately.
The left and right parts are tricky to do. It's the exact same process but this time we have a second Selector and and a second shape key, then we just add the drivers for this second shape key and the selector and it will control the other side of the face. It was too complicated to go over in this video
Tutorial on the spider verse style animation? Thanks
is it possible to bake these animations so it can be exported into unity or unreal?
There's no need to bake them, if you keyframe the shape keys they'll be exported when you export your model/rig!
@@VertexArcade ty!
Hello! This tutorial is absolutely insane, thank you! I have a question, I'm trying to achieve this using bones instead of cursors, any Idea why it's not working? I think it's the transform space.
Yeah I couldn't get bones to work! It's something to do with the the fact that the bones are children of an armature, so the spaces don't work the same way as the transform space of an object. I'm not really sure how to get it to work, I tried everything I could but nothing ever worked
Thanks a lot!@@VertexArcade
Did you made that model 0:15
Yeah, the character with black hair and orange eyes is my own character, but the one after that is the Fortnite model of Gwen from the Spider-verse movies
Hello, I'm really interested in this tutorial I just have one question: Are the eyebrows and face joined or parented together?
They are joined together! For the shape keys to work correctly they should all be one object, you could keep them as separate objects but then you would have to have the same shape keys for each object and then assign the drivers. It works but it's a little more complicated
@@VertexArcade Thank you ♥
i want to use it with 3d images. does it work with 2d images to create different facial expressions?
Solo es shape keys con pasos extras
Porfavor, dime se puede en 3DsMax?? Y comoooo
Its there a were of form to make the controls three times with the same model?? You Know, maybe 1 controller for the right eye, 1 controller for the left eye, and another controller for the 2 eyes at the same time??
You could always separate the shape keys into Left and Right using a Vertex Group, then create a second Selector and repeat the same process, this time using the distance between the new selector and the image to control the left or right shape key, then you can move them independently and if you want to control them together you can just move both of the selectors at once
doing the bones can be a pain but man that's a lot of steps to just animate a face I just stick with the bones😅
Is that Gwen model available for download by any chance? no worries if it isn't!
It's actually just the Fortnite Gwen model that I've made some tweaks to, it's very easy to find!
Isnt this just blendshapes? Or Morphs been around for decades.
Is it possible to rig this with a face tracking program?
Would this also work on Lego facial expressions akin to The LEGO Movie?
Yeah it could possibly work. You could have a mouth mesh that changes shapes, and this mouth mesh would need to be shrink-wrapped on to the Lego Head so that it curves. Then you could switch expressions using the shape key rig and it should work