Morphing is the simplest facial technique and good for original and advanced artists. Morphing takes vertex positions from duplicated models plus blends them on the selected morph model. By blending from multiple ‘reference’ models you can make a number of expressions for the character while retaining flexibility on editing the new model.
Morphs can be very effective to generate special facial affects like ‘lump on head’ for cartoon scenes as the head mesh be able to be happily manipulated with small issues. One interesting affect of morphs is that you can upset the morph % this can turn a blink into a stare or a smile into a sulk, as the morph invert the vertex position. a few of these inverts will need limits so no distortions appear.
Pros
- extremely flexible to manipulate the vertex’s
- Can insert up to 100 different morphs
- Can manipulate UV mapping (for control model just)
Cons
- Cannot insert or remove vertex’s to morph targets & control model (if you do this the vertex order for the morph targets will go out of position, or cannot be loaded keen on the morphed modifier)
- Takes up more memory than skinning
Morph process :
1. A control model is duplicated a number of times by reference copies. These reference copies resolve act as the ‘morph targets’.
The manage model acts as the unusual model and should be modified if you want to modify every the morph models at the similar time i.e. change shape of face, nose, eyes etc. This creates global modifications simple
2. On every of the reference copies an edit poly stack is less and the mesh is deformed into the right morph expression.
If you’re not content with the shape of the morph insert a new edit poly stack and delete the previous added stack. This will revert the morph into its unusual form.
Turning on & off the stack will help you see the modifies you have made to the morph
A full of 11 morph targets will require to be created for the primary expressions. reminder that the teeth have been included in the morph mesh.
Left / right eye close
for blinks plus wide-awake expressions
Left / right smile
for smiles plus sulk expressions
Jaw open
For Jaw movements
Jaw slide
For unsure facial expressions
Bottom lip drop
For Speech, grins
Top lip up
For sneering plus speech
Kiss
For kiss expressions, speech plus wide mouth.
3. One time you have created the morphs you can make a reference clone of the control model to make a morphed model. This will be used to blend the facial expressions and used for rendering.
Insert a morphed modifier to the morphed ‘render’ head plus if needed add a skin modifier placed above it to competition it to the characters body position.
(Tip) If you desire to copy the body’s skin modifier to the head just select the skin stack on the body plus drag it onto the head.
If you want to copy the skin stack in excess of to the head as an instance only hold ‘CTL’ and drag it onto the head. The instance stack will come into view in an italic slanted font.
This process works most excellent when using envelopes for bones.
To end off a set of eyes are added to the head and a Look At constraint is added to their rotations to target a assistant point.
Just move the helper point to make the characters eyes look at the point of focal point.
4. Once you have added the morphed modifier you container load in the morph targets with the ‘load manifold targets’ button in the morph modifier menu. Then just select the morph targets you wish to use.
With every of the morph targets loaded, you resolve need to set the morph limits in ‘channel limits’. This option is grayed out when ‘global limits’ are useful in the ‘global parameters’ in the ‘morph modifier’.
(Tip) if you adjust a morph target you resolve need to have this updated in the morph modifier. Click on the update button to have the newest targets reloaded.
Over-view :
(Tip) Morphing is able to too be used to generate random faces. This can be use for crowds where you might wish to reuse the similar mesh & morph sets while mixing it with fresh morphs and texture replacements to generate latest people.
