So today I started testing the dreaded mouth expressions for Jed, and was actually pleasently suprised at the simplicity. I began by modelling the mouth open, allowing myself space for the teeth and tongue aswell as providing extra geometry to stretch and play with. Once modelled in its most extreme position I duplicated the head and attempted to shut it. It was a long process which involved rearranging vertices and edge loops until the jaw closed with hardly any deformation. It was a pain at first because I raised everything until several edge loops were cluttered together towards the top of the head. This was bad news as it provided a nasty movement on the back of the neck when blendshaped....
I then realised that only vertices on the front of the face need to be moved otherwise animation will occur in unwanted places. Noting this I re-modelled the closed mouth only moving the bottom lip geometry and leaving the neck loops to form an almost diagonal pattern. This resulted in a much better blend....
As you can see the second model has a much better edge flow to it, with the mouth rings in a far more effective position...
As I was on a bit of a roll I decided to model the teeth to help me understand how much space is required within the mouth, and more importantly whether or not it was looking any good...
I was going to tackle the tongue but realised the scene was in a state and so renamed EVERYTHING and tidied up the outliner...
I then called it a day after abusing Grigs. I hope to achieve a few more expressions by the end of the week, especially the fully closed lip!
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