Pipeline 1: Jetpack Jones - Facial Weights Binding and Blending

 To start the facial rigging, the current head and it components current binding needed to be unparented. Doing this turns back on the "Inherits transforms" for the head and makes the components float in the outliner. This makes need transforms information on the components so its best to make sure they are clean.

  Starting the skeletal structure for the head, a new joint chain is added for the "jaw rotation". This was measured with curves ranging from the eye, ears and bottom of the head. When renaming, they are a  central control so the suffix c_ was used. 

Measuring with Nurb Curves

  Following this, a new joint is added above the second neck joint with the "Add Joint" tool. Removing the parenting chain between the head joints, the new joint was duplicated two more time and placed slightly apart.  These was renamed as upper/lower/base joints. The jaw_rotation joint was parented to the lower joint and then all parented together as so:

upper joint - lower joint - base joint

base joint chain - neck joint 2

Added Joints

  The skin was then bound to the selected joints in the following order:

neck joint + neck joint 2 + jaw rotation joint + lower joint and lastly the upper joint

  Starting by flooding everything to the lower head joint, some animation was added to show how the weights are working. The weights was then painted to the correct areas using the grow selection and smoothing options.

Flooded to the Jaw Rotation Joint

Weights Blended

Mirrored

Blending in the Paint Weight Tool

  Using the mirroring and flooding options on a low value helped to make the weights flex better.

  Following this, some animation was placed to the neck joints and the weights was painted/ blended. I found this part quite difficult to get right and there seems to be a slight pinch in the mesh at the back of the head. Although I want to smooth this out, I feel it was best to take this a learning curve and keep going. Moving the mesh when bound will cause a lot of problems later on. 

Neck - Pre Blended

Neck - Backwards Post Blend

Neck - Forward Post Blend

  There is some collapse in the front of the neck when going forwards, this is due to some odd twisting in my geometry. Again, this is a lesson to move forward with. 

 For the stretch in the top of the head, all the weight above the nose was flooded to the upper head joint and then gently blended outwards to stop any odd stretching. 

Blended Upper Head

  To finish the facial wrights, all the component's was brought back into the viewport and the weights copied over from the head after the initial binding. This  allow the components to stretch the same way as the head.

  Some areas around the bottom of the head band needed some further weighting as there was deforming when stretching.

Binding the Components

Weighted Components