Archive for January 2013

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.