Proper workflow for an animated mouth?

[louvfx]

Hi,
I don’t have much experience with rigging or proper setups, so I am reaching out for some help on setting up a “mouth move”.

My sculpt will just be grazing in the field, so all I need is to have the mouth chewing and some basic head moves. I went back into zbrush and split opened the mouth, but I am not sure what the best workflow is to bring it back into Maya.

ie;
Should I split the mouth & head into 2 pieces?
Do I bring in the jaw & body separate?
Would blend shapes be a better method, vs rotating a joint bone?

The model has fur and other parts parented, such as eye & horns.

Thanks so much,
Lou

[Spyndel]

Hi @louvfx ,

I don’t know very much about what you’re doing, but from what you describe:

@louvfx

Should I split the mouth & head into 2 pieces?

I would not. Unless the two parts are supposed to be visibly separate, you’d get the best results posing them as part of the same mesh.

@louvfx

Do I bring in the jaw & body separate?

As above, unless you mean the teeth. Teeth and eyes typically are posed as separate meshes.

@louvfx

Would blend shapes be a better method, vs rotating a joint bone?

For the type of animation you describe it sounds like traditional rigged animation would be best. Blend shapes like 3D layers in ZBrush have limitations for the purpose of animation. It sounds like you want to animate both the pose of the head as well as the movement of the jaw at the same time.