Blend Shape Problems (3)

[marcilus]

I'm setting up some blend shapes for facial animation. I created a basic skeleton and bound the default shape to it in order to get some basic jaw movement. That way, I could open the mouth, duplicate the head, and then teak that shape to create my "Open" shape.

So I have my "Open" shape and a few others (Smile/Wide, etc.)

I go to set up the blend shapes, and I get nothing...it just won't go.

Something that I've noticed is that on all the duplicates of the bound, default shape, the transform nodes are all locked. I've tried freezing and resetting transformations, but no luck.

What I'm hoping for is that there's some fix that I don't know about so I don't have to redo all my Blend Shapes.

Any help would be phenomenal!

[drblacksnake]

Your acts are odd.
If You are going to use skeletal deformation tool for creating blendshapes then apply them to simpler skeleton - e.g. it is not sane to have jawbone to open mouth and openMouth blenshape - these together would produce double transforms. Better have halfway open mouth as default shape and create from it all blendshapes just consider for cheek bulge You need to make bulgy cheeks with mouth default-open, because open/close/jawShif could be done by bone.
if You create blen shapes this way, then dupicating skin shows LOCKED, not FROZEN channels.. You can simply unlock them. After duplication mowe tehm away, but do NOT freezeTransform!
later, when all blend shapes done and applied, fiigure how to reorder deformers to have proper result.
I hope this would help. anyway it is easy to pick these things up, especially if one have no fear of pressing F1-key.

[marcilus]

My thinking here may seem odd, but by rigging up a very basic jaw bone, I cut down my vert tweaking time tremendously. The jaw bone will be deleted after I finish creating the various blend shapes, and the "Open" shape will be used to open the mouth. So no double transforms, but much time saved on modelling.

Thanks for the advice on the cheek bulge.

I've unlocked the channels, hoping that it would allow the Blend Shapes to create, but no luck.

I select the heads (selecting the base shape last), go to Deform -> Create Blend Shape, and boom...nothing.

I now get an error message saying that there are "no deformable objects selected".

I assume this is due to the fact that I duplicated from a skin object. The bound head with simple skeleton.

Is there a way to turn a skin object into a deformable object, since, after digging through the Help menu, all I get is this?

"During skinning, you bind a model's deformable objects to a skeleton. After skinning, the model is called the character's skin, and the deformable objects are called skin objects.

A deformable object is any object whose structure is defined by NURBS control vertices (CVs), polygonal vertices, or lattice points. NURBS curves, NURBS surfaces, polygonal surfaces (meshes), and lattice deformers are all deformable objects. A character's model can consist of one deformable object (for example, a large polygonal surface) or of groups of deformable objects (for example, groups of NURBS surfaces).

Typically, a character's model consists of deformable objects (typically NURBS surfaces, polygonal surfaces, or both) organized in hierarchical groups. The organization reflects the structure of the character's appearance, and should be based on how the character will be animated. For example, a NURBS model could consist of groups of NURBS surfaces that make up the character's feet, legs, torso, arms, hands, neck, and head."

Update

I now can get the Blend Shapes to create by unchecking the "Check Topology" box. Yay! Now, when I move the slider...my head goes all over the place. Any suggestions as to why that happens?

Any help at all would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[drblacksnake]

it moves because of different local space.. seems You have freezeTransforms done. and deletion of jaw bone es not so wise as it might seem, because in future You would achieve more angular (thus natural) deformations, than when linear one from a few blendshapes used.