Mouth and facial animations - any tutorials?

[EsmeRavensbane]

Hi all, I am slowly trying to learn about Blender and Avastar. I am experimenting with the mouth and jaw bones to try to create a static smile, without much success. Does anyone know of any guides which explain and demonstrate the movements I can expect from the various bones/joints which control the lips , please.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

44 minutes ago, EsmeRavensbane said:

Hi all, I am slowly trying to learn about Blender and Avastar. I am experimenting with the mouth and jaw bones to try to create a static smile, without much success. Does anyone know of any guides which explain and demonstrate the movements I can expect from the various bones/joints which control the lips , please.

The answer is probably going to be "Not really".

See, LL system avatars DO NOT HAVE "bones controlling lips". Their facial expressions are a series of pre-defined face morphs.

Meanwhile, MESH heads each have their own rigging, and use their own animations, an "open mouth" pose made for a Catwa head looks really bad on a Lelutka head, and so on, so you'd need to decide what brand of head you want to make pose for, and try and get a dev kit for it.

 

[RohanaRaven Zerbino]

 

11 hours ago, EsmeRavensbane said:

any guides which explain and demonstrate the movements I can expect from the various bones/joints which control the lips , please.

I doubt you will find such a guide, nor a mentor who has enough free time to explain those to you. You can study it tho on existing facial animations: activate Show Avatar Joints From Advanced/Character (may differ in various viewers) and study how bones are moving with different bento facial expressions.

Also keep in mind what Zalificent said: there is no standard in bento heads, and every head has its own rig.

If you're just starting with Blender and Avastar, facial expressions might not be the best way to begin. Instead, consider starting with static body poses to get a feel for how the bones behave. This will help establish a solid foundation for your animation skills. Find a model pose image online, upload it as an image on a plane, and experiment with the body bones until you achieve the desired results.

For free tests, login into Beta grid.

Even you will be using bone rotation and translation values in body poses, never export animations with the "With translation" option. There is only one exception of the rule, the "tongue out" animation. However, in this case, it's crucial to be absolutely certain that none of the other facial bones have translation values.

When working with facial animations, it's crucial not to use translations and to rely solely on rotations, except in the specific scenario mentioned earlier.

And keep body and face animations separate.

Medhue has a few very useful bento facial animation tutorials. You might find more interesting information on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@medhue

Edited January 6 by RohanaRaven Zerbino

[EsmeRavensbane]

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, Zalificent and RohanaRaven,

I did wonder if it would be necessary to morph the faces and did a little bit of research. I have also seen the previous posts about the tongue. I will follow the Dev kit advice. Also thanks for the advice about Beta.

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

Also FYI: it's best to use only rotations in your animations. Using translations interacts poorly with SL's face and body shape slider system. The two prominent bones that translations are OK on are the root bone and the tongue.

[Christina Halpin]

Yes. I can wrote an animation to lower my eyebrows, and in-world it raised my eyebrows (or the other way around)

Also, the happy expression on people's face that is called a smile involves a lot of muscles, not just moving the lips. Just curving the lips up can look like the Joker.

[KS Moonites]