BlendShape mouth VS jaw bone

[puppetsoul]

I want to animate a complex character.
Actually, i prepare the blendShape, and i know there is the jaw bone method for the jaw.
I want to know if someone have try it and whats the better way (more simple/realistic?)

Know you where i can find video/tutorials on this technique

Thanks in advance

[gmask]

There are many ways to do this.

If you use blendshapes only you need to keep the facial positions neutral.

This means that you'd have a face with an open and closed mouth with no jaw movement an then one face with jaw movement. The jaw face will look funny because the mouth is still in a neutral pose so it will look like jay leno. But if you use the open jaw and open mouth together it will look right.

The advantage of isolating facial movements likt this is thatr you can get an infinate number variations in the face. more so than if you have several face poses. If you use a bone for the jaw you'll have to worry about weighting with may be trickier than using blendshapes.

g

[twedzel]

I used to do it all blendshape, but I just set up a face using a jaw bone and I have to say I am so much more pleased with the results. Not only do I get better deformation, the rotations etc are all correct. I used clusters and blendshapes to accentuate the movements needed (folding/bulging/stretching skin), and set it all up to one slider with a set driven key relationship. It basically fire and forget, then I added a few clusters to the lips to customize any position further... but my basic idea's are make it extremely simple to animate and am following a pattern of using as few blendshapes as possible to achaieve maximum effect possible. So I'm willing to forgive some presision of animatability for over all simplification of animatability. I also find the linear nature of blend shapes disturbing, and now prefer the jaw joint.