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Advanced Facial Rigging
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Advanced Facial Rigging
Course introduction
  1. 01

    Introduction

    Free
1. Model preparation
  1. 01

    Summary

  2. 02

    Separating objects

  3. 03

    Scale, symmetry and resolution

  4. 04

    Aligning to world orientation

  5. 05

    Modeling adjustments

  6. 06

    Managing the outliner

2. Initial bones
  1. 01

    Neck and head

  2. 02

    Jaw

  3. 03

    Mouth

  4. 04

    Extra bones

  5. 05

    Nose

3. Lips
  1. 01

    3 Curve principle

  2. 02

    Ribbon mesh

  3. 03

    Helper empties

  4. 04

    Stretch bones

  5. 05

    Deformation bones

  6. 06

    Constraints

  7. 07

    Local control bones

  8. 08

    Weight painting

  9. 09

    Lip zipper

4. Eyes
  1. 01

    Initial bones

  2. 02

    Eye highlights

  3. 03

    Iris and pupil

  4. 04

    Initial weight painting

  5. 05

    Eyelids ribbon mesh

  6. 06

    Eyelids deformation bones

  7. 07

    Eyelids local controls

  8. 08

    Eyelids weight painting

  9. 09

    Auto blink

  10. 10

    Eyelids follow

5. Brows
  1. 01

    Why shape keys

  2. 02

    Deformation and eye sockets

  3. 03

    Temporary geometry

  4. 04

    Creating x and z directions

  5. 05

    Creating Shape keys

  6. 06

    Applying shape keys

  7. 07

    Splitting weights

  8. 08

    Local controls

6. Cheeks
  1. 01

    Main shape keys

  2. 02

    Lattice deformers

  3. 03

    Splitting weights

7. Teeth and tongue
  1. 01

    Teeth

  2. 02

    Tongue

8. Mouthcorner shape keys
  1. 01

    Concept

  2. 02

    Initial shape keys

  3. 03

    Combination shape keys

  4. 04

    Mouth open corrective shape keys

  5. 05

    Mouth squash

9. Additional deformers
  1. 01

    Cheek puff

  2. 02

    Additional lattices

  3. 03

    Lip pucker

  4. 04

    Lip compress

  5. 05

    Nostril shape keys

10. Control widgets
  1. 01

    Widgets and override transforms

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3. Lips

Stretch bones

Rik Schutte
Rik Schutte Author
License CC-BY
Report Problem

The next step is to create the pointer bones. These bones start from the jaw base and each one of them will be pointing towards their designated helper empties. With them setup we're almost ready to create the deformation bones.

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8 comments
Dustin S Haynes
Dustin S Haynes
June 2nd, 2026

I had Gemini create me a handy python script to automate the tedious setup bits, for example: Parenting empties to nearest vertex, setting stretch-to targets based on name, parenting deform bones under stretch-to (assuming proper naming convention)

Miles Hobbs
Miles Hobbs
May 12th, 2026

is there a reason you use batch rename as opposed to symmetrize?

Rik Schutte
Rik Schutte
May 29th, 2026

@Miles Hobbs yes, you could!

Wilmer Borda
Wilmer Borda
March 28th, 2026

Why not use the add-on to see what you're pressing? I'm completely lost. Also, I don't understand why the videos aren't subtitled. I'm learning English and it's very difficult without subtitles.

Rik Schutte
Rik Schutte
May 29th, 2026

@Wilmer Borda Subtitles are recently added! And sorry if steps are confusing. Is there anything that is confusing in particular? happy to help you out.

Dmytry
Dmytry
March 11th, 2026

That's insane

Todor Nikolov
Todor Nikolov
March 11th, 2026

Hi. Are you using an addon for Batch Rename? The default one doesn't look like that :). Sorry if I missed the explanation and it's not essential, just curious.

Rik Schutte
Rik Schutte
March 12th, 2026

@Todor Nikolov I'm not using an addon for Batch renaming. Why it might look different, You can add and remove renaming parameters with the + and - icons. To be fair, I didn't go into detail on how batch renaming works.

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