similar to the joy a programmer experiences when he learns a new language and the computer spits out a the first “hello world“, the creation of a 3d face smiling back to you after weeks of fiddling around with vertices is as satisfying. my first character face rig has just been completed and lt. lou (the name of my character) can express all kind of emotions through my self made control interface which is basically a huge set of nurbs and clusters directly connected with attributes or driven by a key that control joints and blend shapes.
so everything is quite straightforward and – apart from the time i needed to accomplish the creation of the 3 dozens of blend shapes – the production was pretty hassle-free. i went knee deep into fancy details: i can even control the antenna transforms, the scale of the eye’s pupils and the rotation of the tongue. i know i won’t use all this in my upcoming short, but it was a great exercise to know what’s possible.
it’s time now to move forward and use my work in the 3d animatic i have to present next week at the vancouver film school, hoping to generate some smiles on the faces of the audience.