Pose Shape Keys ​

Table of Contents ​

This addon lets you create shape keys that blend already deformed meshes into a previously stored shape. It also lets you manage multiple copies of a shape key together. Each copy can have a different vertex group mask, or be applied mirrored around the X axis.

You can find a detailed video tutorial on how to download, install and use the addon here.

Installation ​

  1. Download latest release
  2. Launch Blender, navigate to Edit > Preferences select Addons and then Install,
  3. Navigate to the downloaded add-on and select Install Add-on

Basic Workflow: ​

  • Create a pose whose deformation you want to correct. A pose is defined as an Action and a frame number.
  • Create a Pose Key on the deformed mesh. Assign the action and the frame number.
  • Press "Store Evaluated Mesh". This will create a copy of your mesh with all deformations applied.
  • Sculpt this mesh into the desired shape.
  • Go back to the deformed mesh, and assign one or more Shape Keys to the Pose Key.
  • Press "Set Pose" to ensure that the rig is in the pose you created and specified earlier.
  • Press "Overwrite Shape Keys".
  • When you activate your shape key, your deformed mesh should now look identical to your sculpted shape.
  • If you have more than one shape key, the same data will be pushed into each. The purpose of this is that each copy of the shape key have a different mask assigned to it. This can streamline symmetrical workflows, since you can push to a left and a right-side shape key in a single click.

Example use cases: ​

1. Sculpted facial expressions applied directly on top of a bone deformation based rig: ​

  • A character artist can sculpt facial expressions to great quality and detail
  • You pose the rig to be as close to this sculpted shape as possible, and create a rig control that blends into this pose using Action Constraints.
  • Using the addon, create corrective shape keys that blend your posed mesh into the shape of the sculpt.
  • Hook up those corrective shape keys to the rig via drivers
  • You now have the precise result of the sculpted facial expression, while retaining the freedom of bone-based controls that can move, scale and rotate!

2. Author finger correctives 24 at a time: ​

  • Create a pose where all fingers are bent by 90 degrees at the first joint.
  • Create a Pose Key and a storage object, and sculpt the desired deformation result.
  • On the rigged mesh, create 24 shape keys within the PoseKey; One for each section of each finger.
  • Assign vertex groups to them that mask each finger.
  • Normalize the vertex masks.
  • Now you can push the sculpted hand shape into all 24 shape keys at the same time.
  • Create drivers so each shape key is driven by the corresponding finger bone.
  • You can now tweak and iterate on the sculpted shape, and update all 24 shape keys with the click of a single button.

(CC) Blender Foundation | studio.blender.org