Creating BlendShapes in Maya

[@uistudios]

I just started this Discord channel, wanna join :) ★ Discord - discord.gg/PQF5R2kaE6 (Share Your Work with Me and Others!!!)

[@wintuh]

Thank you so much for this tutorial. There are so few tutorial on the shape editor, and this is by far the best.

[@uistudios]

@@wintuh awesome to know!! 👍😁ty

[@DaydreamingDrawings]

taking a maya course right now and this saved my life! thank you!

[@uistudios]

Amazing 👍❤️

[@microwavve513]

thank you so much every other tutorial was giving me the run around, yours is so straight forward and works !:)

[@uistudios]

That is my goal for every tutorial I make just go straight to the point :) Really appreciate your feedback!!!

[@3DRonin]

this changed my life... after so many years doing it wrong..,Thanks dude!!!

[@uistudios]

@@3DRonin amazing 🤩 no wrong way to do stuff imo, just another alternative to be more efficient

[@DigitalAdamTech]

Thanks for this. Personally I would duplicate the mesh, sculpt the shape on the duplicate, then combine them using Animation > Deform > Blend Shape. I used to use your technique all the time, but if I'm not paying close attention sometimes I would accidentally sculpt the base mesh because the Edit key wasnt red, or Maya Sculpt tools give me an error, or some other issue happens. My suggestion is a lot safer. You have no idea how many times I would lose all my blend shape work because of it! Just my two cents... :) Anyways keep up the good work!

[@angiemon897]

That is exactly what I was thinking about, but rather I got the feeling like what you just desribed was the old method and kind of "bad practise"? (I seriously don't know, that's just the impression I got) What I was wondering about is, doesn't this "old" method rack up the polycount pretty fast? Especially when exporting for Game Engines (Unity in my example) as fbx, where you can include Blendshapes as well.. does anyone know how that works? If the Blendshapes are sculped directly onto the mesh does that save polycount instead of multiplying it? Or do they get multiplied in the background anyway (in terms of putting a strain on performance) ... or do both not matter at all when in Unity, because just de deformation of the vertices get exported or something? I'm really currently confused which workflow would be the best (I want to know the most "pro" workflow there is, even it means it's more difficult :)) Anyone know how exactly this works?! Thanks

[@DigitalAdamTech]

​@@angiemon897 From my understanding they both do the same thing (the video and my method). If you use the Shape Editor to create Blend Shapes like in the video and then export it to an FBX, and then take that same FBX and bring it back into Maya, those Blend Shapes import as meshes that are hidden but link to the main mesh. It seems that the Shape Editor is doing everything "behind the scenes", so to speak. I tested it with my mesh that has 10 Blend Shapes. Using the video method I exported to an FBX and it was 845 KB in size. Then I imported that FBX, deleted all the Blend Shapes, took those hidden meshes and added them to my main mesh with 'Animation > Deform > Blend Shape', then deleted those hidden meshes to only have my main mesh with the Blend Shapes, and exported it as a FBX... the FBX was the same size at 845 KB. Hope that helps!

[@angiemon897]

@@DigitalAdamTech ohhh... that indeed does help! Thank you for taking the time for this experiment

[@DigitalAdamTech]

@@angiemon897 Are you talking about using Blend Shapes for shape corrections when the joints move in a certain position? I've never done that before.

[@КаинГретхен]

Thank you!

[@uistudios]

Are you making a game character? 😁

[@КаинГретхен]

@@uistudios Not really, I made an animation for a character for my portfolio, I wanted to liven him up a bit

[@uistudios]

@@КаинГретхен cool 👍 feel free to post a link here to your character… it’s always fun to see the different ways blend shapes can be used.

[@КаинГретхен]

@@uistudios Yes, I wanted to share the result but youtube didn't let me :) in artstation i'm kain_gretxen and work with yellow mermaid. It was my first blendshape and thanks to your video it was really easy to figure out and I enjoyed the process :)

[@uistudios]

@@КаинГретхен oh wow is it this? shorturl.at/ipDU5 I love it! Amazing work 💛

[@Birdman_Animation_Studio]

great tutorial!

[@uistudios]

Thank you!!

[@OsaTailska]

Thaaaaank yoouuuuu !

[@IsaMae.T]

thanks!

[@CHITUS]

👍

[@moldusoanimation782]

Hello, I remember earlier versions where you have to do the blendshape before binding the character because if not you run into some problems…I have 2018 and it looks the same as yours, are you sure I can make the blend shapes after binding and animating the character?

[@uistudios]

Yes, I do it all the time... I create new shapes as I need them after rigging.

[@Alice_Longinuse]

Hello can you extend this tutorial by trying deformer fall off for blendshapes ?

[@uistudios]

Hi, blendshapes don’t use a fall off… fall off is only used during 3d modeling 😎 not sure i understand the question

[@Alice_Longinuse]

@@uistudios ohh okay.. how about tutorial blendshapes to time editor ? I think it would be very useful... thanks...

[@Sparkulas-u8f]

how to enable edit mode in the blendhape editor?

[@uistudios]

@@Sparkulas-u8f open the blendshape editor, it’s all the way on the right, next to each new blend layer

[@angiemon897]

Great Tutorial!!!! Thanks! What I dont get it, the blend shapes are then saved inside of the rig, correct? The way I'm currently doing it is: export the rig (joints & binded mesh) in bind pose without any animations export every animation (select all-> joints, bake keys, then export this as fbx "rig@currentanimation" to save file space and then the rig will just get referenced for all the animations without having to bake the mesh, I found this to be the best and resourcces-saving approach. So how exactly would I add corrective blend shapes into this? (Like mesh of the foot looks weird in certain position, but I can't fix that with weight painting, because then it would look weird in another position) sooo is there a way to assign this to a specific animation clip/keyframe wthout having to do extensive coding, like in the animation controller or something?

[@uistudios]

Yes blendshapes are exported with the mesh as long as you check that on export. In Unity you can manually key the blendshapes in the timeline and activate them during specific animations. I usually try to make things deform properly during rigging so I personally have not used blendshapes the way you are trying it 😁

[@Sneewitchen1]

Thank you!

[@josedelacruzcorreagamez967]

Thanks a lot. I really don't like the old blend shape way. This is much more easier. Just one question: what is the meaning of the green circles on the shape editor window? I see you have them orange all the time (beside the "blink" name you gave to the shape), but mine is green.

[@uistudios]

Take a look at this: knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU/Maya-CharacterAnimation/files/GUID-3C92402C-B24E-4874-AC8D-EADF976A19DC-htm.html ... hmmm not sure why its green, maybe a different Maya version!

[@josedelacruzcorreagamez967]

@@uistudios Thanks a lot. I using Maya 2022.3. Strange, I haven't found the answer but still, the blend shapes are working fine.

[@GmanGavin1]

Do you need an armature for this? I was planning on making an adjustable watchband for Unity with blendshapes but I can't get it to export. It works like construction history inputs so if I delete construction history then it deletes the blendshapes. Unity doesn't recognize any kind of blendshape but from the looks it appears it might be impossible to have blendshapes without an armature. Although rewatching this tutorial it looks like you try to put everything on a group object.

[@uistudios]

Yes you absolutely can export to Unity from Maya without joints. Simply create your blendshapes in Maya, select your model and choose FBX as your export. Then make sure that you select "Animation" check box as well as "Deformed Models > BlendShapes" inside the Animation section... then when you import that into Unity you will see the blend shapes slider which you can control.

[@ЛакомыйКусок]

Like in Zbrush. Thanks!