Advanced Rigging

Mouth Controls

Introduction

This tutorial is a jaw set up made by Kendal based on the principles we learned with the neck. There are simpler ways to achieve this, but this will reinforce what we went over with the bind in the neck (since this is supposed to be the week that we spend on skinning).

Tutorial

Making a Jaw Control

1. Go to a side view and create a joint in the center of the ear lobe (it should be in the center of the body, but in the side view, it should look like you place it in on the ear lobe).
2. The next joint in the joint chain should be at the tip of the chin.
3. Rename joint1 to jaw_anim
4. Rename joint2 to jawEnd_joint
5. In the Layer menu, Change the box next to doNotTouch_layer from and R to nothing by clicking on the R.
6. Select head_geo.
7. Choose Edit Mesh > Split Polygon tool. Split the polygons on each side of the mouth so that there is a line from the mouth to the ear (you should only have to split 3 polygons). Look at the extracted faces below to see where to cut.
8. Select the faces on the bottom portion of the jaw and go to Mesh>Extract.
9. Rename polySurface1 to head_top_geo. Rename polySurface2 to jaw_geo.
10. Select head_top_geo and jaw_geo and delete history.
11. Select jaw_geo and jaw_anim and choose Skin > Bind Skin > Smooth Bind
12. Create two polygon cubes (like we did for neck) and place them at the top and bottom of the jaw.
13. Name the top cube jaw_top_inf and name the bottom cube jaw_bot_inf.
14. Select jaw_top_inf, jaw_bot_inf, and jaw_geo. Choose Skin > Edit Smooth Skin > Add Influence.
15. Hide jaw_top_inf and jaw_bot_inf.
16. Select all of the vertices in jaw_geo.
17. Go to Window > General Editors > Component Editor. Change all of the values in the jaw_anim column to 1.
18. Select all of the vertices along the top of the jaw and inside of the mouth. Change all of the values in the component editor in the jaw_top_inf column to 1. If you do not see the correct column, go to Options > Hide zero columns. Now you should see them.
19. Select all of the vertices on jaw_geo that are sharing an edge with the neck_geo. Change the values in the jaw_bot_inf column of the component editor to 1.
20. Rotate jaw anim. The mouth might look kind of scary... so next we are going to have to clean that up.
21. Select all of the vertices that seem to have been "left behind" or that you think should have opened up with the jaw_anim rotation.
22. In the component editor, change their values to 1 in the jaw_anim column. (you can leave the jaw_anim rotated to make this process faster).
23. Do the same for all the values that moved with jaw_anim that should have stayed connected to the face, only change the values in the jaw_top inf column. When you are done, the jaw should look less frightening:
24. Select Jaw anim and change all of its rotations back to 0 in the channel box. This could be weight painted more, but this is good enough for a low-poly version of the rig.
25. Create a nurbsCircle. Click on jaw_anim then nurbsCircle1 and click the copy pivot button in the Rigging Shelf.
26. Click on the circle and then the joint, click the shape button in the Rigging shelf.
27. Move the cvs so that the circle is in front of the mime's chin.

Clean Up

1. Select jaw_bot_infBase and jaw_top_infBase. Group them together, rename the group jaw_infBase_grp.
2. Parent jaw_bot_inf and jaw_top_inf to head_anim.
3. Parent jaw_inf_grp to doNotTouch_grp
4. Parent jaw_anim to anim_grp
5. Group jaw_anim to itself and rename the group jaw_anim_grp.
6. Duplicate jaw_anim_grp. Rename it jaw_anim_grp_pos.
7. Delete the children of jaw_anim_grp_pos.
8. Parenet jaw_anim_grp_pos to head_anim.
9. Parent constrain jaw_anim_grp to jaw_anim_grp_pos.
10. Turn off inherits transform on jaw_geo (make sure your jaw geometry doesn't move! If it does: here is a quick fix: turn the inherits transform back on. group jaw_geo to itself, call the group jaw_geo_grp. Select jaw_geo_grp and press the up key until you find something that has some sort of transformation on it, like y translation, copy the value that has tranformed that parent. Make jaw_geo_grp have the same transformations, then turn inherits transform off for jaw_geo_grp).
11. Hide jawEnd_joint.
12. Add jaw_anim to fk_neck_layer.
13. Done!