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Course

Stylized Character Workflow
feed Course Overview
Intro keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Introduction

    Free
  2. 02

    Introduction Update

    Free
1: Head Sculpting keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Defining Goals

    Free
  2. 02

    Research

  3. 03

    Blender Setup

  4. 04

    Sculpting a Primitive Head Shape

  5. 05

    Sculpting a complete Planar Head

  6. 06

    Smoothing the Planar Head

  7. 07

    Stylising the Head Sculpt

  8. 08

    Timelapse: Sculpting Rain's Head

    Free
  9. 09

    Timelapse: Vertex Painting

  10. 10

    Timelapse: Sculpting Hair

  11. 11

    Timelapse: Head Design Variations

  12. 12

    Timelapse: Finishing Rain's Head Design

2: Body & Outfit Sculpting keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Creating a Primitive Body

    Free
  2. 02

    Sculpting the Planar Torso

  3. 03

    Sculpting the Planar Arms & Legs

  4. 04

    Sculpting the Planar Hands & Feet

  5. 05

    Smoothing & Stylising the Body

  6. 06

    Creating Clothing Basemeshes

  7. 07

    Update: Optimal Clothing Basemesh

  8. 08

    Modelling additional Basemeshes

  9. 09

    Stretching vs Compression

  10. 10

    Sculpting Wrinkles & Folds

  11. 11

    Polishing the Surfaces

  12. 12

    Finishing the additional Elements

  13. 13

    Timelapse: Sculpting Rains Body

  14. 14

    Timelapse: Rains Autumn Outfit

  15. 15

    Timelapse: Adjusting Proportions and the Outfit

  16. 16

    Timelapse: Rains Summer Outfit

    Free
  17. 17

    Timelapse: Sculpting Rains final Outfit

3: Expression Testing keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Fast & rough Retopology for the Head

  2. 02

    Modelling the inner Head & transferring Details

  3. 03

    Adding the teeth, gums & tongue

  4. 04

    Basic Expression Shapekeys

    Free
  5. 05

    Sculpting an Expression

  6. 06

    Breakdown: Expression Guide Part 1

    Free
  7. 07

    Breakdown: Expression Guide Part 2

  8. 08

    Breakdown: Design Adjustments

  9. 09

    Breakdown: Adding extra Appeal

4: Clean Retopology keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Retopology Introduction

  2. 02

    Creating & Guiding Topology

  3. 03

    Planning the Facial Retopology

    Free
  4. 04

    Retopology Setup

  5. 05

    Facial Retopology - Edge Flow & Articulation

  6. 06

    Update: Strategic 2-Poles

  7. 07

    Facial Retopology - Patches & Poles

  8. 08

    Facial Retopology - Creases & Tweaking

  9. 09

    Timelapse: Head Retopology

  10. 10

    Timelapse: Body Retopology

    Free
  11. 11

    Timelapse: Inner Body & Transfering Volume

  12. 12

    Timelapse: Head Objects & Tweaking

  13. 13

    Timelapse: Hair Retopology

  14. 14

    Timelapse: Shirt & Pants Retopology Pt.1

  15. 15

    Timelapse: Shirt & Pants Retopology Pt.2

  16. 16

    Timelapse: Shoe modeling & additional Tweaking

  17. 17

    Timelapse: Scarf Retopology & Finishing Touches

5: Bonus Chapter: Snow keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Timelapse: Sculpting Snow's Head

    Free
  2. 02

    Timelapse: Sculpting Snow's Body

  3. 03

    Timelapse: Polishing Snow

  4. 04

    Timelapse: Sculpting Snow's Outfit

  5. 05

    Timelapse: Remeshing & Adjusting Snow

  6. 06

    Timelapse: Snow's Expression Tests

  7. 07

    Timelapse: Posing Snow

  8. insert_drive_file Live: Face Retopology visibility_off
  9. insert_drive_file Live: Head Retopology visibility_off
  10. insert_drive_file Live: Hair Retopology visibility_off
  11. insert_drive_file Live: Upper Body Retopology visibility_off
  12. insert_drive_file Live: Body Retopology visibility_off
  13. insert_drive_file Live: Retopo tweaks & outfit visibility_off
  14. insert_drive_file Live: Outfit Retopology visibility_off
  15. insert_drive_file Live: Retopology Finale visibility_off
  16. insert_drive_file Live: Body UV Mapping visibility_off
  17. insert_drive_file Live: Outfit UV Mapping visibility_off
  18. insert_drive_file Live: UV Mapping Finale visibility_off
  19. insert_drive_file Live: Base Colors & Preparations visibility_off
  20. insert_drive_file Live: Tiles & Procedural Detail visibility_off
  21. insert_drive_file Live: Height Map Painting visibility_off
  22. insert_drive_file Live: Detail Extraction & Stitches visibility_off
  23. insert_drive_file Live: Textures & Procedural Eyes visibility_off
  24. insert_drive_file Live: Procedural Skin & Hair Anisotropy visibility_off
  25. insert_drive_file Live: Turntable & Hair Textures visibility_off
  26. insert_drive_file Live: Baking & Final Renders visibility_off
Bonus Videos keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Youtube Version: Stylized Character Workflow in Blender 2.81

    Free
  2. 02

    Snow Character Creation Recap

    Free
  3. 03

    Sculpting Fundamentals

    Free
  4. 05

    Preventing/Fixing Boolean Errors

Cheat Sheets keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Killing/Directing Loops visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Poles & Edge Flow visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Stretching & Pinching visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Hiding Stretching visibility_off
  5. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Strategic 2-Poles visibility_off
  6. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Hard-Modeling Creases visibility_off
  7. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Edge Flow visibility_off
  8. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Landmarks visibility_off
  9. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Articulation visibility_off
  10. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Patches & Poles visibility_off
  11. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Creases visibility_off
  12. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Deformations visibility_off
  13. insert_drive_file Retopology Setup visibility_off
  14. insert_drive_file Body Topology - Seperate Limbs visibility_off
  15. insert_drive_file Body Topology - Joint Loops visibility_off
  16. insert_drive_file Body Topology - Finishing Touches visibility_off
Course Lesson .blend files keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file File 1: Head Sculpting Lessons visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file File 2: Body Sculpting Lessons visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file File 3: Topology Examples visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file File 4: Facial Topology & Planning visibility_off
Final Renders keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Rain - Final Render visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file Rain - Turnaround visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file Rain - Turnaround (Clay) visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file Rain - Turnaround (Wire) visibility_off
  5. 05

    Rain - Turntables

    Free
  6. insert_drive_file Snow - Final Render visibility_off
  7. insert_drive_file Snow - Turnaround visibility_off
  8. insert_drive_file Snow - Turnaround (Clay) visibility_off
  9. insert_drive_file Snow - Turnaround (Wire) visibility_off
  10. 10

    Snow - Turntables

    Free
  11. insert_drive_file Rain & Snow - Final Render visibility_off
Rain - Character Development keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file 1 - Head Exploration visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file 1 - Head Polish visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file 2 - Body Iterations visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file 2 - Outfit Variations visibility_off
  5. 05

    3 - Expression Tests

    Free
  6. insert_drive_file 4 - Retopology visibility_off
  7. insert_drive_file 4 - UV unwrapping visibility_off
  8. 08

    5 - Turntable Renders

    Free
  9. insert_drive_file 6 - Pose Exploration visibility_off
  10. 10

    6 - Pose Polishing

    Free
Rain .blend files keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Rain - File 1: Head Sculpting visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file Rain - File 2: Body & Outfit Sculpting visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file Rain - File 3: Expression Tests visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file Rain - File 4: Retopology & UV mapping visibility_off
  5. insert_drive_file Rain - File 5: Shading & Texturing visibility_off
  6. insert_drive_file Rain - File 6: Posing visibility_off
  7. insert_drive_file Rain - File 7: Lighting & Composition visibility_off
Snow .blend files keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Snow - File 1: Concept visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file Snow - File 2: Sculpting visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file Snow - File 3: Testing visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file Snow - File 4: Retopology visibility_off
  5. insert_drive_file Snow - File 5: UVs & Shading visibility_off
  6. insert_drive_file Snow - File 6: Rendering & Compositing visibility_off
Snow - Character Development keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file 1 - Concept Drawings visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file 2 - Head Sculpting visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file 3 - Full Body Sculpting visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file 4 - Outfit Sculpting visibility_off
  5. 05

    5 - Expression Tests

    Free
  6. insert_drive_file 6 - Pose test visibility_off
  7. insert_drive_file 7 - Retopo (Face) visibility_off
  8. 08

    8 - Retopo (Head)

    Free
  9. 09

    9 - Hair Retopology

    Free
  10. 10

    10 - Body Retopology

    Free
  11. 11

    11 - Outfit Retopology

    Free
  12. 12

    12 - Turntable Tests

    Free
More Resources keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Base Meshes visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file Matcap: Default with Specular visibility_off
  3. insert_drive_file Matcap: Gradient visibility_off
  4. insert_drive_file Matcap: Ghost visibility_off
Addons keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Screencast Keys visibility_off
  2. insert_drive_file Magic UV visibility_off

Course

Stylized Character Workflow
Intro keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Introduction

    Free
  2. 02

    Introduction Update

    Free
1: Head Sculpting keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Defining Goals

    Free
  2. 02

    Research

  3. 03

    Blender Setup

  4. 04

    Sculpting a Primitive Head Shape

  5. 05

    Sculpting a complete Planar Head

  6. 06

    Smoothing the Planar Head

  7. 07

    Stylising the Head Sculpt

  8. 08

    Timelapse: Sculpting Rain's Head

    Free
  9. 09

    Timelapse: Vertex Painting

  10. 10

    Timelapse: Sculpting Hair

  11. 11

    Timelapse: Head Design Variations

  12. 12

    Timelapse: Finishing Rain's Head Design

2: Body & Outfit Sculpting keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Creating a Primitive Body

    Free
  2. 02

    Sculpting the Planar Torso

  3. 03

    Sculpting the Planar Arms & Legs

  4. 04

    Sculpting the Planar Hands & Feet

  5. 05

    Smoothing & Stylising the Body

  6. 06

    Creating Clothing Basemeshes

  7. 07

    Update: Optimal Clothing Basemesh

  8. 08

    Modelling additional Basemeshes

  9. 09

    Stretching vs Compression

  10. 10

    Sculpting Wrinkles & Folds

  11. 11

    Polishing the Surfaces

  12. 12

    Finishing the additional Elements

  13. 13

    Timelapse: Sculpting Rains Body

  14. 14

    Timelapse: Rains Autumn Outfit

  15. 15

    Timelapse: Adjusting Proportions and the Outfit

  16. 16

    Timelapse: Rains Summer Outfit

    Free
  17. 17

    Timelapse: Sculpting Rains final Outfit

3: Expression Testing keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Fast & rough Retopology for the Head

  2. 02

    Modelling the inner Head & transferring Details

  3. 03

    Adding the teeth, gums & tongue

  4. 04

    Basic Expression Shapekeys

    Free
  5. 05

    Sculpting an Expression

  6. 06

    Breakdown: Expression Guide Part 1

    Free
  7. 07

    Breakdown: Expression Guide Part 2

  8. 08

    Breakdown: Design Adjustments

  9. 09

    Breakdown: Adding extra Appeal

4: Clean Retopology keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Retopology Introduction

  2. 02

    Creating & Guiding Topology

  3. 03

    Planning the Facial Retopology

    Free
  4. 04

    Retopology Setup

  5. 05

    Facial Retopology - Edge Flow & Articulation

  6. 06

    Update: Strategic 2-Poles

  7. 07

    Facial Retopology - Patches & Poles

  8. 08

    Facial Retopology - Creases & Tweaking

  9. 09

    Timelapse: Head Retopology

  10. 10

    Timelapse: Body Retopology

    Free
  11. 11

    Timelapse: Inner Body & Transfering Volume

  12. 12

    Timelapse: Head Objects & Tweaking

  13. 13

    Timelapse: Hair Retopology

  14. 14

    Timelapse: Shirt & Pants Retopology Pt.1

  15. 15

    Timelapse: Shirt & Pants Retopology Pt.2

  16. 16

    Timelapse: Shoe modeling & additional Tweaking

  17. 17

    Timelapse: Scarf Retopology & Finishing Touches

5: Bonus Chapter: Snow keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Timelapse: Sculpting Snow's Head

    Free
  2. 02

    Timelapse: Sculpting Snow's Body

  3. 03

    Timelapse: Polishing Snow

  4. 04

    Timelapse: Sculpting Snow's Outfit

  5. 05

    Timelapse: Remeshing & Adjusting Snow

  6. 06

    Timelapse: Snow's Expression Tests

  7. 07

    Timelapse: Posing Snow

  8. insert_drive_file Live: Face Retopology Free
  9. insert_drive_file Live: Head Retopology Free
  10. insert_drive_file Live: Hair Retopology Free
  11. insert_drive_file Live: Upper Body Retopology Free
  12. insert_drive_file Live: Body Retopology Free
  13. insert_drive_file Live: Retopo tweaks & outfit Free
  14. insert_drive_file Live: Outfit Retopology Free
  15. insert_drive_file Live: Retopology Finale Free
  16. insert_drive_file Live: Body UV Mapping Free
  17. insert_drive_file Live: Outfit UV Mapping Free
  18. insert_drive_file Live: UV Mapping Finale Free
  19. insert_drive_file Live: Base Colors & Preparations Free
  20. insert_drive_file Live: Tiles & Procedural Detail Free
  21. insert_drive_file Live: Height Map Painting Free
  22. insert_drive_file Live: Detail Extraction & Stitches Free
  23. insert_drive_file Live: Textures & Procedural Eyes Free
  24. insert_drive_file Live: Procedural Skin & Hair Anisotropy Free
  25. insert_drive_file Live: Turntable & Hair Textures Free
  26. insert_drive_file Live: Baking & Final Renders Free
Bonus Videos keyboard_arrow_down
  1. 01

    Youtube Version: Stylized Character Workflow in Blender 2.81

    Free
  2. 02

    Snow Character Creation Recap

    Free
  3. 03

    Sculpting Fundamentals

    Free
  4. 05

    Preventing/Fixing Boolean Errors

Cheat Sheets keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Killing/Directing Loops
  2. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Poles & Edge Flow Free
  3. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Stretching & Pinching
  4. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Hiding Stretching
  5. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Strategic 2-Poles
  6. insert_drive_file Topology Guides - Hard-Modeling Creases
  7. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Edge Flow
  8. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Landmarks
  9. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Articulation Free
  10. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Patches & Poles
  11. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Creases
  12. insert_drive_file Facial Topology - Deformations
  13. insert_drive_file Retopology Setup Free
  14. insert_drive_file Body Topology - Seperate Limbs
  15. insert_drive_file Body Topology - Joint Loops
  16. insert_drive_file Body Topology - Finishing Touches
Course Lesson .blend files keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file File 1: Head Sculpting Lessons
  2. insert_drive_file File 2: Body Sculpting Lessons
  3. insert_drive_file File 3: Topology Examples
  4. insert_drive_file File 4: Facial Topology & Planning
Final Renders keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Rain - Final Render Free
  2. insert_drive_file Rain - Turnaround Free
  3. insert_drive_file Rain - Turnaround (Clay) Free
  4. insert_drive_file Rain - Turnaround (Wire) Free
  5. 05

    Rain - Turntables

    Free
  6. insert_drive_file Snow - Final Render Free
  7. insert_drive_file Snow - Turnaround Free
  8. insert_drive_file Snow - Turnaround (Clay) Free
  9. insert_drive_file Snow - Turnaround (Wire) Free
  10. 10

    Snow - Turntables

    Free
  11. insert_drive_file Rain & Snow - Final Render Free
Rain - Character Development keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file 1 - Head Exploration Free
  2. insert_drive_file 1 - Head Polish Free
  3. insert_drive_file 2 - Body Iterations Free
  4. insert_drive_file 2 - Outfit Variations Free
  5. 05

    3 - Expression Tests

    Free
  6. insert_drive_file 4 - Retopology Free
  7. insert_drive_file 4 - UV unwrapping Free
  8. 08

    5 - Turntable Renders

    Free
  9. insert_drive_file 6 - Pose Exploration Free
  10. 10

    6 - Pose Polishing

    Free
Rain .blend files keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Rain - File 1: Head Sculpting
  2. insert_drive_file Rain - File 2: Body & Outfit Sculpting
  3. insert_drive_file Rain - File 3: Expression Tests
  4. insert_drive_file Rain - File 4: Retopology & UV mapping
  5. insert_drive_file Rain - File 5: Shading & Texturing
  6. insert_drive_file Rain - File 6: Posing
  7. insert_drive_file Rain - File 7: Lighting & Composition
Snow .blend files keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Snow - File 1: Concept
  2. insert_drive_file Snow - File 2: Sculpting
  3. insert_drive_file Snow - File 3: Testing
  4. insert_drive_file Snow - File 4: Retopology
  5. insert_drive_file Snow - File 5: UVs & Shading
  6. insert_drive_file Snow - File 6: Rendering & Compositing
Snow - Character Development keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file 1 - Concept Drawings Free
  2. insert_drive_file 2 - Head Sculpting Free
  3. insert_drive_file 3 - Full Body Sculpting Free
  4. insert_drive_file 4 - Outfit Sculpting Free
  5. 05

    5 - Expression Tests

    Free
  6. insert_drive_file 6 - Pose test Free
  7. insert_drive_file 7 - Retopo (Face) Free
  8. 08

    8 - Retopo (Head)

    Free
  9. 09

    9 - Hair Retopology

    Free
  10. 10

    10 - Body Retopology

    Free
  11. 11

    11 - Outfit Retopology

    Free
  12. 12

    12 - Turntable Tests

    Free
More Resources keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Base Meshes Free
  2. insert_drive_file Matcap: Default with Specular Free
  3. insert_drive_file Matcap: Gradient Free
  4. insert_drive_file Matcap: Ghost Free
Addons keyboard_arrow_down
  1. insert_drive_file Screencast Keys Free
  2. insert_drive_file Magic UV Free

5: Bonus Chapter: Snow

Live: Body UV Mapping

July 5th, 2021

info License: CC-BY Free
Download (167.4 KB)
Report Problem
Julien Kaspar
Julien Kaspar Publisher

In this first part for the UV maps I am focusing on giving a full workflow example based on the body. This means placing seams to unwrap the entire body, reducing stretching with pinning and live unwrap, keeping the uv map symmetrical & clean and sorting the head, body & hands onto 3 seperate UDIM tiles. Next time I will go over the clothes and how to handle asymmetric topology well and what UVs are best for clothing in general.

Links:
  • Original Live Steam: If you are interested in watching these live when they come out or the live chat.
General Links
  • Short version of the creation of Rain
  • Recap video of the creation of Snow
  • Rain .blend files
  • Snow .blend files
  • Course Resources

Join to comment publicly.

13 comments

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Sept. 29th, 2022

I'm wrestling with some of the concepts on the face. The seams are including the neck in the face island and that, by the color yellow and some orange on the nose, indicates it needs some work plus the nose needs work because it bulges and stretches the tiles. Having both the neck and face seamed together seems to make it harder to find room to manipulate points. Is there a reason the neck isn't seamed seperate to give more room to work the face? If it is skin texture, which in most cases on a stylized character is fairly consistent, would any seam made under the chin even be noticeable? I can see a realistic character where you may be texturing wrinkles have a seam be a big issue but would that even be an issue with a simple texture like on Snow or Rain?

Julien Kaspar
Julien Kaspar Sept. 29th, 2022

@Wayne Batchelor Thansk for the questions! I personally like to include the neck and everything visible around the collar of the shirt in the first UDIM. The face and neck textures tend to be very close to the camera and should get a high resolution because of it.

It's a bit hard to rely on the colors if the different UV islands have a different scale. But I'll always try to keep the color of one UV island as consistent as possible and regularly check out the resulting stretching on the 3D model.

I think seams won't end up as too notiicable for film productions. So having a large one under the jaw is ok.  In this case I decided against adding one just because I felt like the resulting UV map is not suffering too bad from it.

Let me know if this didn't answer your question quite right or if you ahve more ;)

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Sept. 29th, 2022

@Julien Kaspar - Thanks, that makes sense, I guessed that even a relatively smooth skin texture might show a seam if you had close -ups, which I have planned for animation of a particular character.

Jamison
Jamison April 14th, 2022

how do you get good skin color

Julien Kaspar
Julien Kaspar April 15th, 2022

@Jamison Lots of reference and trial and error. You can see there workflow in a later timelapse here: https://studio.blender.org/training/stylized-character-workflow/live-base-colors-preparations/

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 10th, 2022

I'm going through this tutorial, over and over, to get my head around the system before going to the next tutorial. I know there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task so, a few more questions.

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 10th, 2022

Ok, let me try that again. 1. When unwrapping, you mention that you are trying to get the stretching/spacing to indicate blue-green-yellow-orange-red in that order in area stretching, ideally blue but, you isolate parts like the head and scale them to fill the entire image to work on. Just about everything goes to yellow, isn't scaling up like that throwing off your image?  If keeping the stretching in a blue indicator is ideal, shouldn't I just rely on zoom to work the adjusting? 2. You start working the head with the mirror modifier on, giving both halves of the head to work on, which would be tough to keep halves coordinated. Later you kill the mirror modifier off, work the halves in place on the UDIMs, again at different scales, then duplicate the patterns with the mirror modifier being applied, seems like unnecessary to activate the mirror modifier till the end.   Would there be a downside to just working with the half of the mesh with the mirror modifier not applied?  3. You treated the mouth the same way as the eye, breaking it away from the head. Would the same thing be achieved by putting a seam around the mouth in the first place, like on Rain?

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 15th, 2022

One other thing, I noted when working on the closed eyes you mentioned at about the 52 minute mark that you wanted to first add a shape key to close the eye so, I did that first to avoid manipulating everything later like in the tutorial...turns out, you can't do that. At the very end, I had everything laid out on the UDIMs and couldn't apply the mirror modifier - because there were shape keys. So, might want to edit that video a bit because it makes for a lot of rework, maybe just an audio correction when you say "shape keys", change it to "close the eyes".

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 21st, 2022

I started putting the shape keys on the character. The eyes and mouth open work fine. When I put the shape keys on the teeth and the tongue to rotate with the mouth opening, they don't respond, with or without it being set with driver. I tried a number  of combinations then opened a new job, deformed a cube and the shape key worked, then I set a shape key for just rotation on a different new cube, like the tongue and teeth would use, that wouldn't rotate. I watched that part of the video over and over thinking I missed something but the teeth and togue being separate objects don't. I'm using version 3.3.1

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 21st, 2022

Also, in the secondary key (mouth-open) on a set of teeth standing by themselves, I moved just one pixel out, to see if that was what was needed to trigger the rotation but, when I go between the keys, the ending angle stays the same and just the pixel moves so, the keys and/or driver, isn't picking up rotation of the object. Is this a bug or, is there another setting that is in 3.3.1 that isn't in the 3.0 the tutorial was made of, or, is it a bug?

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 23rd, 2022

OK, I've tried every combination on the teeth to get the shape keys to work and nothing works. I tried creating the Basis with the teeth together and the "mouth_open" with the teeth rotated down like the tutorial but, changing the value slider from one to zero has no effect on the rotation. I tried copying the driver from the body, which does work opening the mouth, then pasting on the teeth/tongue, the value turns purple indicating it is attached but when I go back to the body and close the mouth the teeth do not follow, the value does not change either. I went back into the Rain V2.4 model and activated that shape key and tested and it works there. So, back to the character I'm working on (which started with the rain basemesh) and went into the driver editor, there is a driver there but, it just does not connect from the body "open_mouth" to the teeth "open_mouth" . I've been all over the internet looking for an answer but can't find or get one so, I've spent the better part of two days on just that shapekey trying to find a way to make it work and I'll have to skip this section and assume version 3.3 has a shapekey bug. I've also tried this process with the cube both with the shape of the cube changing and a rotation and the shapekey doesn't acknowledge the rotation there either. What stumps me is when I pull up the Rain v2.4 in version 3.3, that "mouth_open" shapekey works on the teeth but, if I add a cube next to Rain, change position of one vertices then rotate the unit a bit, copy the driver from the body to the cube andthe teeth rotate but the cube doesn't using the same driver. So, I looked at whether the shapekey in Rain v2.4 was running on the original shapekey script it was created in a few versions back by deleting the shape keys on the teeth to clear the old code then adding them back the way you have in the tutorial...they didn't work there, the rotation isn't connected to either the value before the driver or after the driver is added. Given that I tried entering the keys and drivers in every permutation, including turning on and off the keys, I'm guessing it is a bug.

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 25th, 2022

I kept wrestling with the teeth opening and, in the tutorial you are creating a driver from the open mouth and using it to open the teeth objects. Apparently that does not work in 3.3, the driver will not rotate an object. So, the only way around that I was able to come up with was to take the upper teeth and gums and create separate vortex groups so I could more easily color the teeth separate from the gums, I did that for the lower also. I didn't want to stack up drivers so, with the vortex groups set, joined the geometry of the upper teeth/gum and lower teeth gums, leaving me two objects instead of four. Then I joined the geometry of the lower and upper. This gives me one object but, with the vortex groups, I'm able to separate the upper set from the lower easily by "select" vortex group. Now, with all the vertices in the same object, with the body mouth closed and teeth closed, I selected the teeth/gum object and added two shapekeys, the "basis" and "mouth open",  then went back to the body object and opened the mouth, back to the teeth object, selected the mouth open shapekey,  and used the vortex groups to easily select just the bottom teeth/gum setup, rotated that down. Then back to the body, created the driver for the mouth open, back to the teeth/gums and selected that "mouth_open" shapekey and pasted the driver.  That worked. It is going way around the horn to get the same result as in the tutorial.

Wayne Batchelor
Wayne Batchelor Oct. 25th, 2022

So, if a shape key only applies to vertices in the same object in 3.3, allowing rotation and axis position to change only by editing the vertices directly in an object edit mode, are there other options for a driver in one object to manipulate rotation and position of another object? This would be common in making mechanical gears turn to bring life to machine models.

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