Blender 4.0 Facial Animation with NO RIGGING!

[@JAYROUTHIER26]

In my opinion the best workflow as an animator reside in the mix and match of both. You animate with bones, then you add the icing on top of the cake using shape keys.

[@Violn95]

Maybe do that the other way around? Might be better to get general placement of expressions and then fine tune things with bones

[@SymbolCymbals2356]

@@Violn95 You have it backwards, with bones you can put the face in any position without limits but it’s missing finer detail like smile lines for example which is why you use a shapekey on top to fix any issues or add little details like that since they excel at fine detail and specific shapes Video games (for hardware performance purposes) do use shapekeys for the entire face but that can run into the issue of shapekeys not interacting well together and creating artifacts that are difficult to find and diagnose beforehand. You also need a TON of shapekeys to make the facial expressions not look repetitive, 52 is a common number of shapekeys and that’s a ton of work just to mimic what bones do for a fraction of the work

[@Violn95]

@@SymbolCymbals2356 sorry, I did have that backwards

[@DimensionDoorTeam]

+1

[@DimensionDoorTeam]

It always depends on your goals. For game engines, I prefer focusing on bones first because it gives much more control.

[@kserra9112]

These can also be used in Unity for game development: - Unity imports shape keys as blend shapes. - Select your model in the Project window, and in the Inspector, you will see a Skinned Mesh Renderer component. - In the Skinned Mesh Renderer, you will find the blend shapes listed. You can manipulate these blend shapes through scripts or animation clips.

[@HampsterGirl]

Wow! I never imagined shape keys being used so effortlessly and conveniently. They've always been a bit of a hassle to work with, especially when dealing with a large number of them. However, this approach changes the game entirely.

[@bobsteven2363]

shape key rigging is how you create photorealistic facial animations. It doesn't end up choppy because you can blend all of the shape keys together at the same time. You can even use apple ar or any facial tracking but you do need to create at least 52 blendshapes which takes forever :((((

[@VertexArcade]

However, this method of rigging the shape keys uses the distance to the images, so as the selector moves over the images it turns on any shape keys it passes over, that's what causes the "choppy" animation in this instance.

[@ngophap6706]

try Face it addon

[@SeanIncorporated]

Yo this rocks! I was over here trying to figure out how to calculate a drivers equation where after going a certain distance, the driver dips from one shape key and rises in the next, but seeing that there's straight up a "Distance Between Two Objects" driver is SO much more convenient. Thank you so much for helping me figure this out!

[@kuromiLayfe]

personally i would recommend both rigged and shapekeyed .. shapekeyed for expressions and the rigged for subtle after motions with bendy bones (dynamic phone or physbones)

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah, that's a valid approach!

[@A-W80]

The models I'm working on won't benefit from this, but I'm still listening just because this guy has a really soothing voice

[@MrHumbuck]

I'm going to save this video to come back to in the future, this seems really useful! Thanks for making it

[@thomasmann4536]

i like this in principle (it's similar to blendspaces in game engines), but by using snap, you're basically robbing yourself. you could easily smoothly blend between multiple shape keys by arranging each section in a 2d space and have no snapping, thus creating basically an infinite variation in face shapes, which would work for both cartoony and realistic animation :)

[@kazumi_vr]

Omg this is insane was tearing my hair out at how daunting face animation was this deserves an award, amazing tutorial and reignited the flame for animating please keep making these tutorials! ❤

[@tonylinks1013]

I'm new to blender. I don't fully get it now but I know I'll understand it later. Thank you very much.

[@AnonAnon-du2ho]

OML what a savior. cant imagine how on earth you figured out how to do all this but glad you did!

[@puppetmaster442]

its the MOST underrated thing ive ever seen

[@mirkocianferoni4648]

I really appreciate this, I was waiting for this tutorial. It's a game changer for the "Stylized Look" that this method can add on expression...Thanks for sharing your awesome work!

[@DuskstarShine]

omg that adon is gonna be a life saver.... me.. animating complex facial motion with about 20 RAW blendshapes. no bone drivers... just the raw shapekey values 🙃

[@gagz9k]

Awesome, I'm buying the add-on, the work put on explaining and creating it is just superb.

[@VertexArcade]

Thank you!

[@snakkattakk]

That's an amazing addon but you really should show people how to go through and make one of these stylized models for this. Cause I would love to do this cause it seems a lot easier than 3d facial expression modelling, but I have no idea how to make these.

[@VertexArcade]

I'll add it to my list of videos to make!

[@snakkattakk]

@@VertexArcade Please do! These stylized models would be much easier for people to make than more detailed ones!

[@rileyb3d]

This is a really hard topic to explain in such a clear way. Great work!!

[@NottanALias]

massive props for making a tutorial on how to set the basic version of the addon you made up yourself while explaining how the addon works and can be used. just truly amazing! im an indie dev and not yet very fluent in animation. what are the potential downsides of shapekey animation in a stylized context?

[@thorn-]

On the refrain of "shape keys animate linearly" - they don't have to. You can set interpolation of a driver to be non-linear, as well as just non-linear for set keyframes.

[@JayM928]

Awesome video! Two things: 1. Despite the couple negative comments about the method. This is EXACTLY what I needed for my project, which did NOT need the complexity of rig. Simple. Straightforward. Got me to my objective way faster than I thought. THANKS. 2. I love the model style of the black hair model in this video. Did you make this from scratch? Can you do a video how to make something like this?

[@LinkiePup]

I appreciate that you took the time to make a tutorial on how to do something, while not just shoving a addon down our throats. Like- “This Method requires this addon, and can only be done with this addon.” Absolutely stunning man! I’ll go an support you when I can! Even if I don’t plan on using the addon version.

[@BlenderVedaEnglish007]

10:48 you have cleared my doubt on a whole another level especially about the drivers

[@cocozozo2021]

This method is everywhere in VRchat. Very easy to use!

[@DuskstarShine]

Id imagen if you want more controll and to smoothly blend the shapes, instead of bringing the selecter to the shapes, bring the shapes to the selecter. You can probably set it up so all the images are in a circle around the selecter, and just bring them in towards the middle to turn on and off those indervisual shapes. Then there is no need to worry about passing over blendshapes to get to another, or mixing ones on oposit sides ^-^ Id imagen it could be made as a "base" in like a clock shape, then you only need to add the shapekeys that are in use for that part (say the eyes) and you can leave whatever is spare blank, just changing the shape its blending and the plain's texture to indicate the shape. ^o^ I have to try this!!

[@domolutz]

Cool addon but I can't work with face rigs only using blendshapes, it's too repetitive and all the blending is linear. Adding bones on top of blendshapes can make sure that you're hitting your nicely sculpted poses but you can give more variety by offseting things using the bones, and you can create nice arcs for things like mouth transitions.

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah, there's a preferred use case for this and that would be very stylised choppy animation that doesn't necessarily require blending between frames. You could get creative with the shape keys though, like in these examples. It's a different way of thinking about animation but I think there's use cases for both methods. kzbin.info/www/bejne/amScgHWHoZyDmJosi=68uqAKIyMky01dcy&t=695

[@pikachufan25]

Gonna head to sleep after This xD: Just Search: live2d mouth chart Repetive Hell Yea!: But "Bad Results cause of X Reason" i disagree... since Live2D uses a Very Similar Workflow which can get Very Smooth Results if Done Propertly... (and Yes i know there are Differences between them but its Close Enough that you can probably get a Really Good Result just Using them...)

[@Txour]

minor nitpick, but no, this isn't how most 2d animation is done, i know that you didn't mean anything bad by it, but by reducing the painstaking process of hand-drawn 2d animation to "picking and choosing" you're kinda contributing to the idea of "the computer does everything" which i know that as an animator you're annoyed by too. anyway, I think the reason a lot of animators like to have this absolute control over their work is that, unlike real life, every frame should be controlled, handled carefully and generally be pleasing to look at. this mindset is what leads to great moving pictures that also look like great normal pictures.

[@VertexArcade]

I completely understand, I didn't mean to undersell the 2D process, I was mostly talking about the tween style animation that it widely used in TV shows on a tight schedule. Hand drawn animation is definitely its own art form

[@dr.einbrein176]

This is awesome! I really like how you explain some steps so we learn how everything actually works and not just how to use everything!

[@TrickDigitalYT]

You Should do a thing showing from opening blender to getting to the point where you can edit the face...

[@vanished001]

Ive never seen this method explained more clearly, excellent video 👍

[@anastasiaklyuch2746]

Just note that this will not work with more complex faces, as shape keys animate linearly, and thus cannot make curved movements. For example, a model with giant eyes, where lids need to be rotated down to close - would clip through eye balls if done with shape keys.

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah, although you can get creative with the way you make shape keys. If I ever needed some curved motion, I would create an intermediate shape key, and then blend from the open blink to the intermediate then to the closed blink, it's a little more work, but it is possible. I've seen some videos where people actually separate the XYZ coordinates of a shape key and then animate them using drivers. It's not the most flexible approach but it can be done

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Bro went and created an animation editor with models... And, its probably universal! lol This dude went omega brain.

[@QUENROUTE66]

Great tutorial! Any plans on making a video on how to make stylized faces like this?

[@VertexArcade]

Rigging isn't my strong suit so probably not. I can make stylised models, but rigging them correctly for animation just isn't my forte. If I really needed to rig a face I would just use something like the FaceIt addon that generates one automatically

[@willyamcarkey717]

This is life changing knowledge for me!! I had no idea it can be done in that way!

[@leethememerwolf]

this was a very helpful video and lesson. Shape key driver setup is so nice looking being able to have a preview of the emotion is very handy

[@MasterCreator1998]

10 out of 10

[@jullibarb]

Que tutorial mais perfeito! Achei um pouco avançado porque não tenho mta familiaridade com os drivers, mas vou tentar aprender, com certeza! Parabéns pelo vídeo, valeu mesmo! 😊

[@ultraozy4085]

awesome tutorial✌, shape key or morphing workflow has been around forever in other 3d programs its very good not just for faces, blender has it too but most people will just use that default bone face rig thingy

[@RTKdarling]

Great work! Subbed! This really got me thinking too. I mostly do abstraction and motion graphics, zero character work. This same method might work with a selector that's being randomly moved via geometry nodes. This might be a workflow for creating seemingly greater variation between multiplied models...

[@johntheco]

Hey, thank you for that video! I just wanted to ask if that method is exportable into Unreal Engine? Looks really cool!

[@costaluca78]

Wow that's an amzing tutorial, well done.

[@darrennew8211]

Very nicely presented!

[@Koda.Fisher]

Heyy I LOVE your Gwen Spider-Verse Model! How do you add the 2D lines for the facial expressions??? a tutorial on that would be sooo awesome! thank you! SUBED.

[@VertexArcade]

They're just tiny meshes that I put in front of the model! I'm actually making a tutorial on it right now! Different ways to get line art and I cover that method!

[@Koda.Fisher]

@@VertexArcade Omg no way!? Thank you sm, I am so excited! Ive been looking for a tut on this forever!

[@PityMauArt]

This is a really good tutorial!! Super clear thank youuu

[@househikephotography]

This was great! Thank you :) is this something that can be exported to a video game engine?

[@Blaxpoon]

This extremely high quality. It helps so much thank you !!!

[@rmt3589]

Deffinately looks like the style I want to use. Can I put in my own svg files, and swap them for different character setups?

[@VertexArcade]

Do you mean the images? Yeah, you can set up any character with shape keys and they can have their own set of images that match to them, then you can have more characters with separate shape keys and separate rigs

[@clements3715]

Yeah we use to learn facial animation like that on 3DS max, it's called morpher in Max like in morphing. very easy and user friendly but efectively less realistic on realistic caracter.

[@BuzzKirill3D]

Thanks. Good method but as you said, the selector moving between expressions can mess up the transition, touching unwanted expressions in the process. Also, if your selector is an object and not a bone, then the animation won't port properly to game engines.

[@tommythecreator7941]

That's just awesome! Thank you so much for the lesson!

[@pinklady7184]

You are God-sent. BIG THANK YOU.

[@martinperon4576]

This is great, thanks!

[@MaiamiPaw]

Great tutorial! Will your addons work fine on newest Blender version?

[@v4p]

it's great

[@wakegary]

it really is.

[@D_Van]

a very useful tutorial, thank you!

[@toshigen]

Awsome!! great applied for expression

[@activemotionpictures]

This is so cool! Thank you for sharing this amazing tool!

[@YourBlenderJourney]

Thanks you so much for this tutorial!

[@xSupaire]

actually i said your technique was horrible but it might be good, hold on, give me an other 3 hours, i'll try to make this work (edit ; no it's so fun to do it took me 20 minutes, thanks, i subbed)

[@alexbabb2]

Amazing video

[@xalener]

my brother in christ this *is* a rig

[@forestlong1]

OK! But you don't explained how to do left/right parts of mimic separately.

[@VertexArcade]

The left and right parts are tricky to do. It's the exact same process but this time we have a second Selector and and a second shape key, then we just add the drivers for this second shape key and the selector and it will control the other side of the face. It was too complicated to go over in this video

[@ParakeetDSi]

I'm pretty sure Minecraft Story Mode did something with the Mouths. Is this similar?

[@Dr.R.]

lovely, i have to (re)build this :-)

[@rasutoraba]

I was wondering this thing ! thanks

[@Stargorithm]

Yoooo How did you make that spiderverse material for gwen? Not like the hatching or halftone but like the base material used on her face?

[@VertexArcade]

It's just a basic toon shader, mix a diffuse shaded into a shader to rgb node, then using a color ramp you can control the sharpness of the shadows

[@Stargorithm]

thank you!@@VertexArcade

[@buster5661]

I hope you eventually make a V2 with smoothing

[@VertexArcade]

What do you mean by smoothing?

[@buster5661]

14:25:@@VertexArcade

[@FF7EverCrisis]

Very informative. Helped a lot

[@brellos7220]

It's a great video! Thanks for helping a lot!

[@AniHasiro]

Wow, it's super.

[@Crashsune]

Super awesome!!! 💖💖

[@blacksyrup2562]

Hello, I'm really interested in this tutorial I just have one question: Are the eyebrows and face joined or parented together?

[@VertexArcade]

They are joined together! For the shape keys to work correctly they should all be one object, you could keep them as separate objects but then you would have to have the same shape keys for each object and then assign the drivers. It works but it's a little more complicated

[@blacksyrup2562]

@@VertexArcade Thank you ♥

[@HamoTheUltimate]

Bro im tripping so hard right now. how tf do you move the skin like that?? you didnt even say.. mine just selects vertices and moves them around making it distorted. how do you move them collectively like that?? im using the same tool

[@ISlayerSwift]

Using "Proportional Editing Objects" in "Edition Mode", the option its under "Animation" and next to "Snap"

[@ISlayerSwift]

If you press G and turn the mouse wheel, you scale the radius

[@laxly9937]

Just a quick question. How did you get the mouth to open?

[@hongannguyen8000]

Magnificent!

[@thffkfltm]

great tutorials

[@ryenis]

is it possible to bake these animations so it can be exported into unity or unreal?

[@VertexArcade]

There's no need to bake them, if you keyframe the shape keys they'll be exported when you export your model/rig!

[@ryenis]

@@VertexArcade ty!

[@edgarortiz6975]

Its there a were of form to make the controls three times with the same model?? You Know, maybe 1 controller for the right eye, 1 controller for the left eye, and another controller for the 2 eyes at the same time??

[@VertexArcade]

You could always separate the shape keys into Left and Right using a Vertex Group, then create a second Selector and repeat the same process, this time using the distance between the new selector and the image to control the left or right shape key, then you can move them independently and if you want to control them together you can just move both of the selectors at once

[@ironcarnage1019]

Is that Gwen model available for download by any chance? no worries if it isn't!

[@VertexArcade]

It's actually just the Fortnite Gwen model that I've made some tweaks to, it's very easy to find!

[@indianastilts]

Ive seen a video explaining this but this video seems much more detailed wbich i love. Question...would it be good to use this process set up for facial animations this way for Games. Im creating a game and need facial animations. Would shapekey facial animation be better used for film and poses or would you be able to use them in game engines

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah, shape keys to control facial animation is definitely an easy way to do facial animation. Most game engines can read shape keys/morphs/blendshapes, so if you have them as part of your regular animation (walk/run etc) then the face will be animated as well!

[@indianastilts]

@VertexArcade amazing would it be easier to use this method for games then using the rigging face method?

[@VertexArcade]

I would say yes. It all depends on the style of animation and game. For a game that focuses on the characters faces a lot, you might need the extra control of the a proper rig, but if the game is more simple and the facial animation isn't going to be complex, then that would be the easier method

[@indianastilts]

@VertexArcade amazing and prompt response so thank you soo soo much. Moulding the face this way seems fun also and freeing to make it exactly how you want then a face rig. I'll have a look at the addon also when I get to the animation stage of face for my game. Loooove this and subscribed from me and liked. Will check your other videos out

[@mildrice9781]

whenever i try to seperate the face into L or R i keep getting an "a is not defined error"

[@mildrice9781]

I removed the a from the script the error isn't there anymore but the left and right sides still dont generate

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah that was a silly error that got through (but I uploaded a newer version without that error). A selects everything in Blender so I was on the wrong window when I pressed it. Hmm the separate Shape Keys should work and it works on my end, can you send me a message on Twitter/Blender market with your issue? Just quick troubleshooting, make sure your model is selected, you have chosen the category that you want to separate and that your shape keys are named correctly, click the Rename/Validate button and see if it helps

[@KeysPlays]

this is fire

[@KensleyInnocent]

Is there any other software out there that has these inbuilt?! Like C4D, Maya, 3DS Max, etc?

[@VertexArcade]

No, this is a custom built setup for Blender. I've never used the other programs so you might be able to set it up but this driver and shape key method is Blender only

[@need975]

Bro make some character tutorial like this head plss

[@coreragestudios3430]

Can the rig be transported in unreal engine and also works with this addon?

[@VertexArcade]

No, the addon is made for Blender. If you animate using the rig it'll keyframe the shape keys and those can be imported into Unreal, but the rig itself can't

[@coreragestudios3430]

@@VertexArcade damn

[@mildrice9781]

This addon seems amazing but i'm not sure about the poses not being able to blend smoothly. How would u get that done and why does it need python?

[@VertexArcade]

With this version, to animate we are keyframing the position of the selector, so if the selector has to move from the first image to the last image, it will activate all of the images as it moves. The addon version keyframes the shape keys directly. However, in Blender, you can't have a driver on a shape key AND keyframe it, so I had to come up with a method that used custom properties and some fancy code to set the values of the shape keys WITHOUT the drivers so that we can keyframe them. So the addon version would keyframe the first shape and the the last one and smoothly blend between them because it doesn't have to activate the shapes as it moves, we have keyframed the shape keys directly

[@olamidesamuel9734]

​@@VertexArcade so all the weird problems like the selector moving across other images and it not transitioning smoothly between key frames is solved by the addon version of thus tutorial

[@canowaui]

Hey where is that gwen model from? Need it

[@effiongsamueljames]

Unfortunately I tried mine but the shapekeys contradicts other shape keys when I try to combine it it

[@VertexArcade]

That sounds like your distance drivers aren't set up correctly. Just make sure that the distance driver uses the correct image and that the values are correct. At a distance of 0, the shape key should be on and a distance of 1 the shape key should be off

[@FancyFun3433]

Hello! I practice realtime animation in blender and have been looking for somewhat of a puppeteer tool for it. Daz3d has the best one but this interests me. Does this work on bones? Can I store multiple poses and then blend between them?

[@ryangrant6249]

Can you make a vid showing how to use your add on plzz

[@Stuckathomemom]

I missed something. How do I see the keyshape in Object Mode? I can only see it in Edit Mode.

[@kevinsantoso9956]

does anyone know how one would control the direction of the eye with this type of rig?

[@VertexArcade]

It's the exact same process as the facial expressions, however this time instead of smiling,frowning etc, you make a bunch of different shape keys for the eye direction, so Eyes Up, Eyes Left, Right etc. then you create the image planes the exact same way, but this time put them in a grid, so the Default eye position at the center, eyes Right to the right, eyes left to the left, Eyes up at the top. The only difference is the shape keys, the rest of it is exactly the same

[@Joryclipz]

Nice!

[@mikeleonard805]

Can you add phonemes so you can use the rig for speech as well as expression?

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah of course, you can add whatever you want, as long as the shape keys don't overlap too much

[@mikeleonard805]

Thanks so much. I've been following you on twitter. Really enjoy you work. @@VertexArcade

[@CassidyListon]

11:40 this is the furthest I get, but when I move the selector nothing changes. (Blender 4.2) I know KZbin comments aren't the best place for troubleshooting but I can't figure out what I possibly missed.

[@EthereallMoonlight]

There is another way, Install the rig and save expressions as shapekeys XD

[@John.Animation-nx4dy]

Hello! This tutorial is absolutely insane, thank you! I have a question, I'm trying to achieve this using bones instead of cursors, any Idea why it's not working? I think it's the transform space.

[@VertexArcade]

Yeah I couldn't get bones to work! It's something to do with the the fact that the bones are children of an armature, so the spaces don't work the same way as the transform space of an object. I'm not really sure how to get it to work, I tried everything I could but nothing ever worked

[@John.Animation-nx4dy]

Thanks a lot!@@VertexArcade

[@DejiDigital]

Na fam. Someone has to say this. That “monstrosity” is literally just the rigify face rig, which is not only already built in and *_FREE_* but can literally be set up in less than half the time it would take to even watch this “tutorial” in full. But this? This looks like so much extra work. For $25 whole ass dollars? I’d rather just stick with rigify and pose library in the asset browser. Like what is this? “Monstrosity”. Like what? 😂

[@The_real_stone]

Setting it up is manageable, if annoying to keep track of all the bones, but animating it is a massive pain. It is really difficult to get the level of expressiveness and control you get when sculpting while trying to move and rotate 20 different bones and handles.

[@VEE0034]

​@@The_real_stone why the fuck do you need 20 bones lmao

[@The_real_stone]

@@VEE0034 the rigify face rig has a lot more then 20… and that’s the easy way out. I think manually making a face rig takes about 2 years off my life in the pain it causes

[@gordon1201]

You didn't even watch the video. He specifically addresses all your points and presents an alternative solution. It's actually quite good. Fuck face rigs. This is a good solution

[@a.j.outlaster1222]

Good point... But what if I wanted the snappy style this provides?

[@infinieye]

After I add the driver on x location my "mouth selector" doesn't move on the x at all.

[@josephvanwyk2088]

Great video, the technical part lost me a bit. Guess I need to thoroughly research drivers before attempting to touch this.