Modo Production Training: Advanced Facial Rigging, Vol. 1

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Have you ever wanted to build a face rig that can hold up to the quality seen in your favourite movie or game, but didn't have the know-how to get started? In this training series, we will dive into the process of extending the Auto Character Setup character rig in Modo to create the ability to animate a hybrid facial rig for believable delivery of expression and emotional performances. It is based on similar setups such as the joint rigs used in AAA gaming titles such as God of War (2018) The Last of Us, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Star Citizen, and Detroit: Become Human to name a few.

We also cover the creation of a simplified controller that can be used for hand animating the face and also for retargeting facial performances from an HMD, such as Vicon Cara or Dynamixyz (I don't have access to either.), and translating it to any character you have.

Each lesson is tailored so you can follow along as you learn the process that goes into creating a robust facial animation system. Remember, every facial rig will be different. Build at your own pace. From facial rigs with simple controls for cartoon characters to VFX level rigs for detailed creatures.

-- Modo (at least version 12 and up)

-- ACS 2 (Optional. This is the primary tool I use for my character rigging. Most of the steps in this tutorial can be applied to any rig you design.)

-- ZBrush (Optional. You can use any 3D sculpting program as long as you can export the mesh for blendshape authoring.)

-- A Small Mirror at your desk. This has helped me when posing the face.

-- Customising the visibility of the facial joints.

-- Using the schematic to set up the facial controllers that will drive the rig

-- Tips and tricks to create a rig that you can adapt to any character or creature

-- And MORE!!!

NOTES:

ETEREA Weight Tools

ETEREA Quick Locators

Renamer by Matt Cox (The script used throughout this training series is now a part of 13.1 )

Extract Pose by James O'Hare

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