Facial Rigging in 3ds Max

Our goal here at JTX is to create appealing, expressive characters, and so we decided a little R&D was needed to improve our facial rigging systems. Here is a quick test of a new face rig interface and some emotion and lip sync examples. We used one of our recent characters created for an educational publisher.

We are using a morph based approach, with a standard control board. Additionally we are using extra controls for the mouth, based upon Paul Neale’s “Dorrito Effect” approach. (but added into a proper rig)

We have introduced better facial topology, which allows proper movement of the face and more subtle and precise adjustment for more compelling and fluid animation.
Software used: 3dsMax, Hairfarm, Vray

I will be going into detail in how we create this rig, and our approach to lipsyncing in a series of Advanced Facial Rigging Tutorials, stay tuned!