WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.160 We'll start off with a couple very basic but also very important shape keys. 00:05.800 --> 00:09.138 Click on the plus button to create a basis 00:09.150 --> 00:12.660 which will be the original mesh and then two 00:12.661 --> 00:17.220 more shape keys which we'll name eyes closed and mouth open. 00:17.940 --> 00:23.220 These expression tests will be helpful as building blocks for further expressions and 00:23.221 --> 00:28.540 to make sure that the eyes, teeth and inner mouth work well with the current model. 00:30.100 --> 00:32.100 So let's start with closed eyes. 00:32.660 --> 00:35.288 I recorded some reference material on myself 00:35.300 --> 00:40.640 to give some real life examples on how to achieve expressions in a believable way. 00:41.380 --> 00:46.140 For blinking or just consciously closing and opening your eyes, we need to slide 00:46.141 --> 00:49.860 the eyelids along the eyeballed surface towards each other. 00:50.260 --> 00:51.580 But it's not just that. 00:52.160 --> 00:55.447 The upper eyelid is visibly going most of 00:55.459 --> 01:00.900 the way down with those eyelashes pushing the lower eyelashes slightly downwards. 01:02.060 --> 01:07.840 The lower eyelids only move up a little bit of the way to meet the upper one. 01:08.260 --> 01:12.160 There's also a clear downwards arc to the closed eyelids. 01:12.820 --> 01:17.720 The crease above the eyes when having the eyes open also pretty much disappears when 01:17.721 --> 01:21.620 the eyes are closed since all the skin is pulled downwards. 01:22.260 --> 01:25.641 There's of course way more details on realistic 01:25.653 --> 01:31.140 eyes but we will just apply a simplified version of this to the stylized character. 01:31.520 --> 01:35.900 Make sure to have the right shape key selected and enter edit mode. 01:36.640 --> 01:41.780 Enable X symmetry so that the changes on one 01:41.781 --> 01:42.340 side are carried over to the other as well. 01:42.341 --> 01:48.200 If you're not sure if the head is perfectly symmetrical then delete one side again and 01:48.201 --> 01:51.740 use the mirror modifier before you get into any shape keys. 01:53.300 --> 01:58.840 Now we want to edit these edges of the eyelids 01:58.841 --> 01:59.841 first, which will be easier with X-ray shading. 02:00.320 --> 02:06.800 But first you need to define a pivot point to rotate 02:06.801 --> 02:08.380 the eyelids around, which should be the eyes itself. 02:09.720 --> 02:13.089 Go back into object mode and select the eye 02:13.101 --> 02:16.640 and set the 3D cursor to the selected object. 02:17.440 --> 02:21.620 If that would work because the origin of the object is slightly off you can also 02:21.621 --> 02:27.400 base it on a selection in edit mode or just literally eyeball it. 02:28.220 --> 02:33.860 Then back in edit mode on the head change the pivot point to the 3D cursor and start 02:33.861 --> 02:37.880 rotating the edges of the upper eyelid from the side view. 02:38.680 --> 02:42.840 You can also do it from any other view, just 02:42.841 --> 02:43.841 make sure that you rotate along the x-axis. 02:44.660 --> 02:50.280 Ideally, the upper eyelid should move like three quarters 02:50.281 --> 02:52.380 downwards in an arc from one corner of the eye to the other. 02:53.260 --> 03:00.180 Afterwards, you can move the edges more freely to give 03:00.181 --> 03:01.420 them a bit more space and fine-tune their positions. 03:14.130 --> 03:17.070 You might also notice some problems with the symmetry. 03:17.490 --> 03:19.230 Just fix these areas separately. 03:20.090 --> 03:24.790 The same changes also need to be made for the lower eyelids, which only move a little 03:24.791 --> 03:30.010 but upwards to meet the upper eyelids and become more or less straight themselves. 03:36.600 --> 03:39.560 Then make sure that both eyelids roughly align. 03:40.940 --> 03:46.440 Now the three to four extra edge loops we added for the eyelids come into play. 03:47.000 --> 03:52.300 Alt select them and slide them down towards the ends of the eyelids. 04:02.330 --> 04:07.210 You can also slide the last loop a bit inward since it relaxes the skin around 04:07.211 --> 04:11.730 the eye a bit more, removing the crease that was there before even further. 04:12.670 --> 04:18.170 With the multi-resolution modifier enabled, we can always see our final result but 04:18.171 --> 04:23.050 turn it off when you want to edit the actual mesh in edit mode and sculpt mode. 04:23.850 --> 04:27.750 Even though it's not very important for the shape key to look good while sliding 04:27.751 --> 04:31.830 the values, it can be very helpful to see what is moving where. 04:33.030 --> 04:37.510 Right now, the eyelids probably don't quite touch each other when subdivided. 04:37.970 --> 04:42.070 To make fixing this a bit easier, we can create a few vertex groups. 04:43.410 --> 04:47.490 These will help us select and adjust specific areas quickly. 04:47.950 --> 04:51.310 To define them, just select a portion of the head, for 04:51.311 --> 04:54.830 example, anything above the corners of the eyes, and 04:54.831 --> 04:58.290 then assign it to the eyelid's upper vertex group. 05:01.620 --> 05:04.094 Repeat this for the other vertex groups, 05:04.106 --> 05:06.840 eyelids lower, mouth upper, and mouth lower. 05:08.380 --> 05:11.260 To edit these shape keys in a bit more detailed way, 05:11.620 --> 05:16.300 I can generally recommend to enable this button for shape key edit mode. 05:17.060 --> 05:21.640 This will show you the mixed results of all your shape keys 05:21.641 --> 05:24.560 in edit mode instead of just the currently selected one. 05:25.220 --> 05:29.300 This way, you can slide the value of any shape 05:29.301 --> 05:31.360 key and see the result while editing them. 05:32.540 --> 05:37.540 Then select everything in the vertex group, eyelids lower, and hide the selection. 05:38.220 --> 05:41.760 In sculpt mode, that geometry is then still 05:41.761 --> 05:43.560 hidden and won't be affected by your brush. 05:44.180 --> 05:49.160 Then push the upper eyelid a bit downwards to push it into the lower eyelid. 05:55.330 --> 06:00.130 You can also adjust the eyelids further if there are any 06:00.131 --> 06:03.690 intersections with the eyes or other issues. 06:05.450 --> 06:10.450 Ideally, the loops should also have a bit of even spacing between them 06:10.451 --> 06:13.790 to not create any hard edges when subdividing the eyelids. 06:15.230 --> 06:20.140 As a tip again, hiding geometry can help when selecting specific portions of. 06:20.780 --> 06:26.200 Since loop selection and growing selections is being stopped by hidden geometry. 06:27.420 --> 06:31.060 This way, you can select loops on the eyelids specifically. 06:38.100 --> 06:42.340 If you want, you can also exaggerate the downwards arc of the closed eyelids. 06:42.880 --> 06:45.640 In my example on the screen, it's rather straight. 06:48.420 --> 06:52.960 Now it's time to do the same thing but in reverse for the open mouth. 06:53.810 --> 06:58.580 The mouth opening is a bit more tricky since it isn't just skin sliding, 06:59.480 --> 07:04.360 but way more interactions with the jaw bone and muscles moving the entire thing. 07:05.180 --> 07:09.280 When we open our mouth, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do 07:09.281 --> 07:12.220 with muscles pulling on the skin around the lips. 07:12.900 --> 07:16.560 The jaw bone rotates downwards and 07:16.561 --> 07:20.200 the skin and muscles around it are being pulled down with it. 07:20.201 --> 07:24.760 Since the lower lips are connected to the upper ones via the mouth corners, 07:25.300 --> 07:28.100 the upper lips are also being pulled on, but 07:28.101 --> 07:31.720 also being held back by being connected to the 07:31.721 --> 07:33.560 nose and being pushed against the upper teeth. 07:34.700 --> 07:38.800 This keeps the mouth corners roughly slightly lower than the middle. 07:39.920 --> 07:44.220 The interesting thing is that the jaw starts 07:44.221 --> 07:46.300 unhinging itself once you open the mouth a lot. 07:47.100 --> 07:52.400 Muscles are pulling the jaw bone forward while it continues to rotate outwards. 07:53.100 --> 07:59.361 The jaw sinks more into the neck and a bulge forms around the pivot point of the jaw. 08:00.040 --> 08:02.680 Now let's apply this to the stylized character. 08:03.700 --> 08:07.140 Make sure to have the open mouth shape key selected, 08:07.620 --> 08:12.300 just to be sure that you don't do any unintended changes to other shape keys. 08:13.100 --> 08:15.360 It happens a lot if you're not careful enough. 08:16.300 --> 08:20.560 Again, use the vertex groups to select portions of the head more quickly. 08:21.220 --> 08:22.780 In this case, the lower mouth. 08:23.840 --> 08:26.560 Then deselect the back of the jaw and neck. 08:27.200 --> 08:29.180 You can do this with lasso selection. 08:30.280 --> 08:33.040 Also make sure that X-ray shading is still enabled, 08:33.420 --> 08:35.880 so you can select through the object. 08:36.980 --> 08:41.340 You should essentially have the lower lip, chin, and most of the jaw selected. 08:42.060 --> 08:47.980 Now from the side view, set the 3D cursor from where you want the jaw to rotate from. 08:50.560 --> 08:54.520 Also to interject here, in hindsight when looking at these recordings, 08:55.040 --> 08:57.620 I set the 3D cursor pretty far off. 08:58.060 --> 09:02.160 It's way more accurate to set it in front of the ear 09:02.161 --> 09:05.260 at around one third or half of the height of the ear. 09:05.840 --> 09:10.300 Of course, this also depends on the proportions and stylization of your character. 09:10.700 --> 09:14.180 After setting the pivot point to be the 3D cursor, 09:14.700 --> 09:16.560 you can now rotate the selection. 09:17.240 --> 09:22.520 With a bit of connected proportional editing, with a sharp fall-off curve, 09:22.940 --> 09:28.860 this can already pull on the upper lip and surrounding skin while rotating. 09:29.880 --> 09:34.600 You can rotate it right to the point where 09:34.601 --> 09:35.601 the jaw should start dislocating and bulging. 09:36.060 --> 09:40.680 Now in sculpt mode, you can fix the stretch geometry and other issues. 09:41.340 --> 09:44.420 The first thing we can do is to smooth out the 09:44.421 --> 09:47.100 neck where the skin and fat should accumulate. 09:47.880 --> 09:51.520 A Clay brush with a bit of auto-smooth can do wonders here. 10:00.190 --> 10:03.690 The stretched faces along the cheek also need some smoothing, 10:03.930 --> 10:08.710 but be careful not to smooth too much without adding some volume back. 10:09.270 --> 10:11.610 Otherwise, the cheeks will become very flat. 10:12.450 --> 10:15.590 The back of the jaw likely also needs a bit of reconstruction 10:15.591 --> 10:19.410 by adding volume back and pushing the corner of the jaw back. 10:21.430 --> 10:25.050 Another tip, if you just want to slide some skin back and forth 10:25.051 --> 10:30.870 without much volume loss or gain, then use the nudge and thumb brushes here. 10:31.390 --> 10:35.050 Just make sure that pressure sensitivity for radius and strength 10:35.051 --> 10:38.990 is disabled and that the stroke method is set to dots. 10:49.030 --> 10:54.130 You can also hide the lower teeth, gums, and the tongue for now. 10:59.890 --> 11:04.670 Push and smooth the lips a bit to get the slightly stretched O shape. 11:06.710 --> 11:11.210 But be careful with a smooth brush since it can easily destroy your model shapes. 11:14.710 --> 11:17.790 Just keep rotating around the model to look at the mouth 11:17.791 --> 11:20.270 from different angles and adjust it further. 11:24.570 --> 11:27.550 Slide the value of the shape key to compare 11:27.551 --> 11:31.790 or just check the little checkbox to enable and disable it. 11:32.450 --> 11:35.950 The stretching and loss of volume of the cheeks is definitely important, 11:36.250 --> 11:39.950 but make sure you don't lose volume on the cheekbones. 11:43.220 --> 11:46.780 The volumes of the face should always be kind of consistent, 11:47.140 --> 11:51.060 just like when you're sculpting the clothes in Chapter 2. 11:51.580 --> 11:54.360 The bone structure should be the main thing 11:54.361 --> 11:56.760 that keeps the proportions of the head together. 11:57.340 --> 12:00.780 In this case, the cheekbones, jaw, and teeth, 12:00.840 --> 12:04.460 as well as the more solid structures of the nose. 12:05.720 --> 12:09.640 If you mainly think about the opening of the mouth in those terms 12:09.641 --> 12:12.600 and then shift around the fat and skin around it, 12:12.860 --> 12:16.200 then it is easier to understand how to make 12:16.201 --> 12:17.280 these facial movements look more convincing. 12:17.940 --> 12:22.000 You can then continue to fine-tune the shapes as much as you want. 12:22.720 --> 12:25.880 Also make sure to look at this with wireframes enabled 12:25.881 --> 12:28.980 since the skin should be pulled all over the place, 12:29.320 --> 12:31.780 not just directly where the bones and muscles are moving. 12:32.980 --> 12:35.620 This will make it immediately look more natural. 12:39.390 --> 12:44.210 Now that the mouth is open, we can clearly see the inner mouth with the teeth better. 12:44.650 --> 12:47.670 At this point, if you want to adjust these areas, 12:47.671 --> 12:52.310 definitely select the basis shape key and sculpt from there. 12:52.590 --> 12:57.450 Otherwise, these changes will only show when you enable the open mouth shape key, 12:57.810 --> 12:59.390 which would look very weird. 12:59.790 --> 13:02.830 If you want, you can create a second jaw movement 13:02.831 --> 13:05.470 shape key to push it further, dislocate the jaw, 13:05.910 --> 13:08.350 and bulge out the muscles at the cheeks. 13:08.990 --> 13:11.250 But I'll keep this relatively simple for now. 13:11.610 --> 13:13.370 When we unhide the other objects, 13:13.650 --> 13:16.350 now it becomes clear what is missing, though. 13:16.351 --> 13:20.570 The inner mouth objects, for example, also need to move with the jaw. 13:21.610 --> 13:25.210 So for this, create a basis and mouth open shape key. 13:25.690 --> 13:30.730 Make sure that you have the mouth open shape key selected on all of these objects, 13:31.010 --> 13:34.950 and then enter edit mode on all of them at the same time. 13:35.390 --> 13:37.630 Then with the same pivot point as for the jaw, 13:37.970 --> 13:42.090 rotate the mesh along the X-axis to fit with the open mouth. 13:42.810 --> 13:46.050 The same thing, of course, needs to happen to the eyelashes. 13:47.190 --> 13:51.310 So do the same thing over here with an eye closed shape key. 13:52.910 --> 13:57.770 In this case, the eyes were the pivot point for the eyelid rotation. 14:00.550 --> 14:04.710 So rotate the mesh of the eyelashes to roughly match the eyelids, 14:05.310 --> 14:10.010 to match general position, but also, more importantly, match the rotation. 14:13.390 --> 14:15.830 Of course, this doesn't exactly match, 14:16.270 --> 14:21.290 so align the mesh further in edit mode or scope mode with the closed eyes. 14:23.030 --> 14:24.630 If you want to sculpt it into position, 14:25.130 --> 14:28.490 I can still recommend to use the snake hook brush, 14:28.790 --> 14:31.690 since it also rotates the mesh a little bit. 14:45.160 --> 14:45.920 Now, of course, 14:46.180 --> 14:48.560 once you really get into sculpting the expressions, 14:48.860 --> 14:51.000 we will be mixing shape keys left and right. 14:51.280 --> 14:56.780 So it will be great if the shape keys of different 14:56.781 --> 14:58.060 objects are moving in unison and not separately. 14:58.740 --> 15:02.100 The way to do this in Blender is with drivers. 15:02.780 --> 15:06.540 Drivers essentially make one value affect other values. 15:07.220 --> 15:07.880 So for example, 15:08.080 --> 15:11.020 we can make the shape key in the eyelashes 15:11.021 --> 15:14.240 copy the value of the shape key on the head. 15:15.160 --> 15:15.920 To do this, 15:16.180 --> 15:18.920 we first need to know the name of the data 15:18.921 --> 15:21.380 block that the shape key of the head belongs to. 15:21.940 --> 15:25.220 If you have Python tooltips enabled in the preferences, 15:25.400 --> 15:30.440 you can read the name when hovering over the shape key values on the head objects. 15:31.880 --> 15:36.340 So in this case, it reads key.001 for me. 15:36.840 --> 15:41.640 Another way to find this information is to open up the 15:41.641 --> 15:43.880 object in the outliner and open up the object data. 15:44.440 --> 15:47.040 There you will see the little green key data block. 15:47.840 --> 15:51.220 Now right click on the value of the closed 15:51.221 --> 15:53.700 eyes shape key and click on copy data path. 15:55.180 --> 16:01.260 Now on the value of the closed eyes shape key on the eyelashes, right click on it. 16:01.620 --> 16:03.020 Here, add a driver, 16:03.320 --> 16:06.600 which will open up a little popup with some settings. 16:07.420 --> 16:11.160 This might look pretty complicated, but you can mostly ignore most of these. 16:11.800 --> 16:17.420 First off, set the expression to plus 0.0 instead of plus one. 16:17.980 --> 16:20.460 Otherwise, it will always add an additional 16:20.461 --> 16:22.700 one to the value, which we really don't want. 16:22.880 --> 16:28.220 We want to copy the value from the other shape key exactly one to one. 16:29.240 --> 16:33.900 Then click on the little X drop down and set it to single property. 16:34.120 --> 16:36.740 So it will only look for a single input, 16:37.060 --> 16:39.560 which will be the value of the other shape key. 16:40.400 --> 16:43.060 Then set the ID type to key. 16:43.760 --> 16:47.780 And in my case, it was key.001. 16:49.640 --> 16:53.240 Then paste in the data path that we copied earlier. 16:53.740 --> 16:54.960 And this is basically it. 16:55.280 --> 17:00.860 So now the driver will look for a single property in the 17:00.861 --> 17:03.600 key.001 data block that is matching the path that we gave. 17:04.280 --> 17:09.020 You can see that the value is being driven by the purple color on the value. 17:09.380 --> 17:12.500 And if you now slide the value of the shape key on the head, 17:12.501 --> 17:16.540 it will slide both shape keys at the same time. 17:16.760 --> 17:22.380 So now repeat the same process for the open mouth and the inner mouth objects. 17:23.260 --> 17:25.740 Copy the data path, add a driver, 17:26.240 --> 17:28.880 change the expression to plus zero, 17:29.620 --> 17:31.040 set it to single property, 17:31.720 --> 17:33.380 look for the key data block. 17:34.160 --> 17:37.600 and type in the name of the same one as before. 17:38.260 --> 17:41.160 Then paste in the data path you copied. 17:41.900 --> 17:44.980 To get the same driver on other inner mouth objects, 17:45.480 --> 17:47.760 just right click on the purple value. 17:48.480 --> 17:50.280 and click on copy driver. 17:50.840 --> 17:54.320 Then paste the driver on the shape keys of the other objects. 17:55.500 --> 17:57.120 And with this, all of it is set up. 17:57.920 --> 18:02.080 With all of this, you are ready to get into the rest of the expression sculpting.