The Anatomy of an Expression for Facial Animation in Maya
In this Maya tutorial, we cover the firing of muscles in the face in response to thought in the brain. Software required: Maya 2012.
What you'll learn
In this Maya tutorial, we cover the firing of muscles in the face in response to thought in the brain. The face is a complex machine that, when operating correctly, can bring a great deal of emotion and entertainment to our audience. To create good facial animations, it is critical to understand the system under the surface that creates expression. We'll dive deep into the muscle system of the face as well as cover a number of good tips for making dynamic and interesting expressions. Software required: Maya 2012.
Table of contents
- Muscle Breakdown 10m
- Thoughts vs. Feelings 14m
- Starting to Block in the Brows 11m
- Timing the Eyes and Brows 12m
- Starting to Spline the Brows 10m
- Timing the Middle Section and Working on Brows 13m
- Cleaning up the Right Eye 12m
- Starting on the Jaw 12m
- Animating Blinks and Pupils 11m
- Polishing the Head 15m
- Polishing the Eyes 9m
- Polishing the Nose 10m
- Wrapping up the Discussion on Firing Order 6m
About the author
Andrew Conroy is the Lead Animation Faculty for the Art Institute of Salt Lake City. He has spent time in the games, animation, and VFX industry. Andrew’s career started at Disney Interactive where he cut his teeth learning the ins and outs of game animation. From there he moved to New York to work for Blue Sky Studios where he worked on Ice Age 3. After Ice Age wrapped Andrew headed west. A direction he has always been more comfortable going. He landed at Rhythm and Hues to work on a number of ... more