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Blend Shape Workflows in Mudbox and Maya

In this Maya and Mudbox tutorial, we'll learn to move Blend Shapes back and forth between the two programs. Software required: Maya 2015, Mudbox 2015.

Justin Marshall - Pluralsight course - Blend Shape Workflows in Mudbox and Maya
by Justin Marshall

What you'll learn

In this Maya and Mudbox tutorial, we'll learn to move Blend Shapes back and forth between the two programs. When creating characters for animation, facial expressions can be an important part of the performance. There are different ways for achieving these expressions, and one of these is to use Blend Shapes. Blend Shapes are modified versions of geometry (facial geometry in this case) that illustrate a particular muscle movement or facial expression. We can then animate transitions between these shapes to get facial animation. There are lots of ways to create these shapes and Mudbox is one that works very well. We'll learn to create shapes from scratch using Sculpt Layers and Sculpt Layer Groups. We'll create a library of smaller shapes and then combine those into an overall expression. We'll end this Maya and Mudbox training by exploring the use of the Pose tools in creating these shapes and learn to set up Blend Shapes made of multiple objects. Software required: Maya 2015, Mudbox 2015.

Table of contents

About the author

Justin Marshall - Pluralsight course - Blend Shape Workflows in Mudbox and Maya
Justin Marshall

Justin thrives as a lead modeling author at Pluralsight. Growing up, Justin found a deep interest for the computer graphics industry after watching movies like Jurassic Park, Toy Story and The Abyss. His ambition would lead him to work at Sony Imageworks in Los Angeles on movies like Monster House and Surf's Up. Justin has also had numerous articles, tutorials and images published in 3D World and 3D Artist.

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