Deformations

In repsonse to a question I received today, here's an old video that I found which explains how to use MODO's tool pipe to paint soft selections.

Greg shows how to add a Weight Map to a face, and then paints areas such as the nose and eyebrows so they can be deformed.

Note that this article does not cover the actual creation of your morph maps. It assumes you have already created them or else, you're using a mesh such as the Old Man Head (part of modo's standard Content), which comes with its own set of facial morph maps.

Create Morph Influence

• Under > Lists > Morph Maps select the first Morph map, right-click, and choose Add Morph Influence.
• Right-click and rename the Morph Influence by appending the facial expression description (e.g. Morph Influence - Angry).
• Rinse, repeat for each of your morph maps.

             
Create Locator & set how it's displayed
• Create a Locator in the Item List and rename it 'Face Controls'
• Drag all of your Morph Influences onto the Locator (just to keep things tidy).
• Position the Locator in front of the head and a bit to the side (as shown in the top image).
• With the Face Controls locator still selected, under > Display > 3D Items tab on the right, click on Add Draw Options and fill in fields as shown.

• Under the Locator Shapes tab below that, fill in fields as per image

Create User Channels
• With the Face Controller selected in the Item List, go to > Properties > User Channels > Add User Channel for each of the morphs.

Link User Channels
• Go to the Setup tab. The Schematics viewport will be displayed.
• Go to the Channels tab on the bottom right
• Scroll down and select all of the morphs channels just created
• Drag them left into the Schematic viewport
• From the Items tab, select each of the Morph Influences one-at-a-time and then go to the Channels tab and drag the Strength into the Schematics viewport
• Wire up each morph influence to its own Strength driver
             
Connect Face Controller to Channel Haul
• Select the Face Controller from the Item List
• Go to > Assembly > Settings > Utility > Commandand select  item.channelHaul
• Click on the Face Controller in the viewport and the Channel Haul will appear.
• Use the sliders to adjust the character's facial expressions.
• These can be keyed in the Animation timeline.

Prepare eyes

• Turn on deformations by pressing O.
• Select Enable Deformers so they are visible to the camera
• Put each eye into separate Item mesh layers
• Select each eye Item individually and center pivot points inside each eye > Edit > Center to Bounding Box > Center

Setup Tab

• Select the Setup tab up the top and then press the Setup button (the viewport will be highlighted) - this effectively turns off deformations temporarily. Leave it on until the end.
• Select one eye at a time, under the Commands menu > Deformers > Transform  . This will add a transformer inside the eye item. It will also create a Transform Effector, which essentially is a locator that the eye will become constrained to.
• Rename the Transform Effectors Left & Right. As they will both be created in world space sitting at 0,0 they'll be difficult to tell apart.
• Making sure that the eyes are visible (i.e. hide any distracting layers), from the Item List
• Select one Transform Effector at a time, and while Match Position is selected, click on Drop Action and then drag'n'drop into each eye.
• You can reduce the size of these Effector locators under  > Display > 3D Items > Size 
• Select both locators and duplicate them, and then move them to out in front of the face.
• Duplicate one of those locators and move it hoizontally so that it's in between the two.
• Parent the locators to the central one which is now effectively the main controller
• Now we need to create a directional constraint by selecting the left eye transform locator, and then shift-clicking on the left locator out the front.
• Under the Modifiers tab, select Direction. Repeat with the right eye.
• To test that it works, turn off Setup mode.