Done!....with 1 head rig

I have my first completely finished character. Man that feels nice to type. Its been a hellish process, but the next characters should go much faster now that I have a head rigging work flow.
That's it. Back to work now!

-eric

Head rigs in process, wahoo

So, rigging was never my strong skill. But, I've been forced to get better at it. For those that dont know, rigging is basically putting bones (joints) into a character so that animators can move it body parts around and make it look natural. Sounds easy enough right? =)
I was pretty confident with my body rigging before this project, but the scary thing is the head rig. In the past, I never had a character that actually talked. For this project I have 5 characters that talk. To make this work, I have to make a series of blendshapes. Lots of them! Heres the list of blendshapes that will be attached to each character. Keep in mind, for each one of these shapes I had to sculp the head into the shape. Ergo, It takes forever =P Thankfully, I purchased a wonderful book by Jason Osipa called "Stop Staring". Its been my bible these past couple weeks. I highly recommend it.


Teeth Shapes
teethUp
teethDn
teethOpen
lTeeth
rTeeth
teethFwd
tongueOut
tongueUp
tongueTipUp
lTongue
rTongue

Face Shapes
open
lJaw
rJaw
jawFwd
jawOpen
lSmile
rSmile
smile
lNarrow
rNarrow
narrow
lWide
rWide
wide
lFrown
rFrown
lSneer
rSneer
lUprLipUp
rUprLipUp
lUprLipDn
rUprLipDn
lLwrLipUp
rLwrLipUp
lLwrLipDn
rLwrLipDn
mouthUp
lMouth
rMouth
lSquint
rSquint
browsMidUp
browsMidDn
lBrowOutUp
rBrowOutUp
lBrowOutDn
BrowOutDn
browsSqueeze

Eye Shapes
lfLidBlink
lfLidBlinkDriver
rtLidBlink
rtLidBlinkDriver
lfLwrLidUp
rtLwrLidUp
lfUprLidDn
lfUprLidDnDriver
rtUprLidDn
rtUprLidDnDriver

Visemes
B/M/P/Closed
EE/Wide
F/V
OO/Narrow
IH/T/S
R
L/N
D/SH/NG/Soft G/H
TH
AW/OH/UH
EH/AH/UH

One character down, 4 to go.

-Eric