FACIAL MUSCLE SCHEME.
The mouth and bottom half of the cheeks were implemented in the following fashion:
To demonstrate the different poses moving I have rendered some hardware previews. The animations are no indication of the final output.
1. THE
'CLOSED MOUTH' POSE - View the hardware
rendered preview to see the mouth animated. The mouth muscles
needed reworking. I decided to completely ignore a muscle system
for the mouth and go for more literal morph-targets. The advantages
being that I would need fewer morph-targets to complete the animations,
and on the whole it would be both a challenge as well as being easier to
manipulate. The Closed Mouth pose is simply the 'Neutral' pose reworked
slightly to close the mouth and raise the jaw. (see
image 9)
Through studying myself , in a mirror, repeating the dialogue "What are you looking at me for?" It became apparent that only 3 morph-targets, apart from the 'neutral' and 'closed mouth' poses, were needed to successfully convey the dialogue.
2. THE 'W' POSE - View the hardware rendered preview to see the pose animated. I have named each phoneme based on the sound they most represented to me in the dialogue. Extensive use of both the Orbicularis Oris and Mentalis were used to create the above expression. (see image 10 )
3. THE 'WHA'
POSE - View the hardware rendered preview to see
the mouth animated. The name chosen for this action is not strictly
accurate. The 'Wha' sound is only generated in co-ordination with
the 'W' pose. Here, extensive use of the Depressor Labii Inferioris
and Triangularis create the correct phoneme.
( see image 11 )
4.
THE 'EEE' POSE
- View the hardware rendered preview to see the expression
animated. This is the final phoneme pose required. To create
the desired effect, the Levator Labii Superioris and the Risorius/Platysma
were all manipulated. ( see image 12
)
Although
only three mouth shapes were created to handle the dialogue, all the muscles
in the human face to do with the mouth were used in some shape or form.
I believe this to be a large factor in efficiently producing the correct
dialogue shapes.