UCOOL HEROES ARENA: Face Rig Breakdown:
To have a look at the cinematics click here
It was pretty challenging to rig characters for a gaming cinematic. At first, we decided to rig the character so that the rig could be supported by game engines, Thus for Unity, limitations were number of joints and low poly model. The same character rigs were planned to use for the game. The main constraint was facial.
Thus to enhance extreme quality, and to achieve robust facial expressions we splitted the pipeline and assets were made separately for the cinematics. A complex hybrid rig was used to exaggerate facial expressions on high polygonal geometries.
The face topology was planned and finalised after some morph tests and changing the span flow for quite a number of times with the help of modellers.
The topology in greyscale shows neat span flow required.
We made some to and fros with modelling department on the topology of the face, and tried to minimize the polycount. But at the same time we modelled in such a way in some particular areas so that wrinkles and FACS shapes were easy to sculpt out with ZBRUSH.
For some expressions, were the wrinkles were extremely highlighted we used normal maps connected to the blend targets. It was an automation, so that when particular shapes were put on, the wrinkles came out to be in proper place.
The facial setup we used was a hybrid one with the base layer made up of local rigs and joints. Some local rigs contained joints while some facial area local rig was connected with clusters.
The joints and clusters are colored differently(connected to the nurbs controllers with Translation and Rotation axis) to show and mark the same used in different areas.
Character - Polaris
Joints and clusters in action with the controllers.
Character - Noctina
The second layer contained morph targets on the base mesh. The nurbs curves and nurbs surfaces(spheres) were constructed and connected to the joints and clusters with connection editor in its Translates and Rotation axis. The group of the controls were riveted with the main face, so that the morph targets when in action will move the controls accordingly.
About 50 morphs were used for this hybrid setup. some examples to show. All the shapes were sculpted in maya.
Character - Polaris
The animator had the freedom to adjust and to tweak the shapes and facial expressions when the blend shapes were in action; by using the secondary controls. A GUI was made to have controls on the blendshapes. In this way we could achieve extreme expressions, thereby depicting the mood in the character.
The characters in action (Polaris and Noctina)
Extreme shapes could be achieved with this Hybrid setup
To have a look at the cinematics click here