Morphing

Creating Morph Targets….

The “Morpher” modifier within 3DS Max is a powerful tool ideal for character animation especially regarding Facial Expressions. The Morpher can be used to recreate emotions such as Anger through “Morph Targets” which are clones of the original mesh that are manipulated to represent intended expressions. Multiple Morph Targets can be applied at once using the “Channel Mixer” under the Morpher Modifier menu. Generally Morph Targets are best used when animating dialogue for example different Phonemes can be created to aid in animating a character talking. Considering that the final animation is intended to reflect the body language of a figure skater based on movements and facial expressions, dialogue is not deemed necessary and therefore will not be implemented. However a limited number of Morph Targets were still created to provide the ability to portray facial expressions during the end animation.

 

The first Morph Target created was that of the character smiling, this was achieved by creating a clone of the existing mesh and all unwanted polygons including the entire body were hidden to focus attention on working with the face.Vertices either side of the mouth were moved upwards to simulate the rising cheeks typical of a human smile. The mouth itself was also transformed into a natural smile shape, arched backwards slightly to compensate for the teeth which would be present behind the lips. Two more Morph Targets were also created to enable the ability for the character to blink, therefore one was made with the left eyelid closed, the other with the right eyelid closed. These Head Morphs were then added as Targets to the Morph Modifier where they could be dialled in & out using the Channel Mixer when later animating. The Morph Targets were then hidden by assigning them to a separate layer so that they would remain out of the way during the animation process and additionally improved the FPS performance of 3DS Max as less geometry was visible.

 

Facial Morph Targets

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