Stop Staring (eBook)

Jason Osipa is currently directing in San Francisco at LucasArts, where he also works with sister company ILM on new ways to converge the tools and techniques of games and film. He has been a working professional in 3D content for over 10 years, touching television, games, direct-to-video, and film in both Canada and the United States. Carrying titles from author to modeler to animator to technical director, Jason has seen and experienced the world of 3D content creation and instruction from all sides.

Introduction.PART I GETTING TO KNOW THE FACE.Chapter 1 Learning the Basics of LipSync.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 TellUs.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 THEMOUTH.Chapter 4 Visimes and Lip SyncTechnique.Sync: Wide/Narrow Grows Up.The Best Order of Sync Operations.Sync Example 1: "What am I sayin' inhere?"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 ANDBROWS.Chapter 7 Building Emotion:The Basics of theEyes.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, andRigging.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 andSquoosh.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.