Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right, 2/e (Paperback)

Description:

Breathe life into your creations

With detailed examples, high-quality professional images, and a touch of humor, this is the fully revised and updated second edition of Jason Osipa's best-selling book on facial animation. You'll learn the basics of design, modeling, rigging, and animation-while mastering exciting new techniques for stretch-and-squash deformation, advanced blend extraction, and the latest software tools. Walk through the author's detailed analysis of sample animations and discover how to add nuance and sophistication to your designs.

Full of insights drawn from years of professional experience, this book provides the focused and practical information you need to create believable facial animations.

• Learn visimes and lip sync techniques
• Construct a mouth and mouth keys
• Explore the process of facial landmarking
• Master the cartoon techniques of squash and stretch
• Harness the latest advanced blend extraction tools
• Create interfaces for your faces
• Understand skeletal setup, weighting, and rigging

Control faces with the book's powerful rig and learn how skin moves to make various shapes and expressions

Master powerful stretch-and-squash (and squoosh!) techniques

Featured on the CD
Fine-tune your facial animations with the techniques demonstrated on the companion CD. Content includes tutorial files, lip sync samples, models, textures, and more.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Table of contents:

Introduction.

PART I  GETTING TO KNOW THE FACE.

Chapter 1  Learning the Basics of Lip Sync.

The Essentials of Lip Sync.

Speech Cycles.

Starting with What’s Most Important: Visimes.

The Simplest Lip Sync.

Chapter 2  What the Eyes and Brows Tell Us.

The Two Major Brow Movements.

The Upper Lids’ Effect on Expression.

The Lower Lids’ Effect on Expression.

Eyelines: Perception vs. Reality.

Distraction Is the Enemy of Performance.

Chapter 3  Facial Landmarking.

Introduction to Landmarking.

Landmarking Mouth Creases.

Landmarking Brow Creases.

Landmarking the Tilt of the Head.

PART II  ANIMATING AND MODELING THE MOUTH.

Chapter 4  Visimes and Lip Sync Technique.

Sync: Wide/Narrow Grows Up.

The Best Order of Sync Operations.

Sync Example 1: “What am I sayin’ in here?”

Sync Example 2: “Was it boys?”

Chapter 5  Constructing a Mouth and Nose.

The Best Edge Flow.

The Big Picture.

Building the Lips.

Building the Surrounding Mouth Area.

Building the Nose.

Connecting the Nose and Mouth.

Building Teeth.

Building the Tongue.

The Mouth Wall.

Chapter 6  Mouth Keys.

Order of Operations.

Preparing to Build a Key Set.

Default Shapes, Additive Shapes, and ss2_blend_taper.mel.

Building the Shapes.

PART III  ANIMATING AND MODELING THE EYES AND BROWS.

Chapter 7  Building Emotion:The Basics of the Eyes.

Building an Upper Face for Practice.

Using “Box Head”.

Rules of the Game.

Example Animations.

Continuing and Practicing.

Chapter 8  Constructing Eyes and Brows.

Building Eyeballs.

Building the Eye Sockets.

Building the Forehead.

Detailing the Inside of the Lid.

Chapter 9  Eye and Brow Keys.

Brow Shapes and Texture Maps.

Building Realistic Brow Shapes.

Building Stylized Brow Shapes.

Tying Up Loose Ends.

PART IV  BRINGING IT TOGETHER.

Chapter 10  Connecting the Features.

Building the Ear.

Assembling the Head Pieces.

Chapter 11  Skeletal Setup, Weighting, and Rigging.

Weighting the Head.

The SS2 Eye Rig.

Zipper Lips.

Chapter 12  Interfaces for Your Faces.

Using Expressions to Animate.

Interface Concepts.

Prep Work for Your Own Setup.

Sharing Control Schemes.

The “Just Do This” Part.

Chapter 13  Squash and Stretch and Squoosh.

Local Rigs.

Global Rigs.

The “Real” Character Has No Rig!

Not Using Wraps Changes a Few Things.

Tutorial: Rigging Squoosh.

Gotchas.

Chapter 14  A Shot in Production.

Scene 1: Bartender.

Scene 2: Lack of Dialogue.

Scene 3: Dunce Cap.

Scene 4: Salty Old Sea Captain.

Scene 5: Pink or Blue?

That’s All, Folks!

Index.