Pipeline 1: Jetpack Jones - Flexible Mouth Rig Pt 2

  For the second part of the mouth rig, the blend shape geometry is firstly skinned to all the ribbon bind joints (following keying some animation on each group.)

  Starting by flooding all the weights to the base joint for the whole head, all the vertices around the mouth are then selected and flooded to the lower central ribbon joint. 

  Painting around the mouth, the idea is make sure the movement is soft and that there is no sharp areas. Following this, areas that are not needed are locked and the weights are painted from the central lower joint to the correct joint.

First Binding

Flooded to the Lower Central Joint

Softening the Flood

  When all the weights are assigned and any influenced are removed, the weights are then blended using the Add/smooth option. The weighting amount is dependant on it's placement in the ribbon. Finally, the blended weights are mirrored across to the right side. As I had some very slight inconsistences on one joint, the weights didn't 100% copy. So I went in and did a little manual painting.

Mouth Rig Progress

This part took me several attempts as influence keep appearing across the mouth, causing it to become quite frustrating. But in the end, I managed to get it done. However, A lesson I have learnt to it make sure the geometry is 100% symmetrical on both sides before attempting any skinning in future.