Dude! This presentation is awesomely interesting!!!
What did you use like facial muscle deformation reference? Did you use Artnatomy (http://www.artnatomia.net/uk/artnatomiaIng.html) or something else?
Are you using the negative motion disp-maps a lot or you just generate it as a formality?
How is the correction disp-map (the 3rd one) useful? I’m having difficulty understanding it’s pupose.
I saw someone baking to normal map a neutral face, put an expression on the face, baking another normal map and, with Photoshop, subtracting the expression face map with the neutral face map to create a normal map that can be use as a “additive map” to assist the facial rig. I guess your process is similar in a way right?
thanks a lot for sharign this workflow, it answers some of the questions, but i think it also calls for a full Video tutorial haha 
woudl be interesting to know what are your references too …so basicly you use a total of 3 blendshapes, and that tool to overlay only areas that actually have a difference ?
sounds very interesting, do you really need that extra step?
im very interested in testing somehting similar, but not sure how to approach it outside of zbrush (the setup, how those are linked to he bones etc…)
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Hey guys sorry for the late reply.
I hope this answers to both you guys’ questions.
I haven’t used any specific reference. Having a mirror and a human skull on my desk most of the time has been of great use 
I just purely analize the machanics under a physical and anatomical point of view, adding some artistic liberty.
I always try to devide my observation time from my work time. I basically try not to use reference for as long as I can.
Most important is to understand before observing I think. So take in consideration what DaVinci said about muscles:
muscles work as ropes and pullies. Take the fact that they always pull and never push and that skin more or less acts like cloth sliding over bones and then you’re done!
The idea of imagining skin to behave like curtains really helped me to also make sure I would keep the volumes. Once the UVs were been moved around
I would use “Project All” on a duplicate geometry of the head which was the best tool for that purpose (I will make a video of that).
This to underline the importance of using ZBrush for this process. I did this kind of work before in maya and it becomes tedious and tricky. The use of subtools really makes it super fast.
Maps are set in a similar way, but it’s how you set the shader that does the magic. Instead of using pre-subtracted maps, I use 3 displacement maps baked out of zbrush
from extreme expressions (positive or negative or corrective).
It’s the alpha maps that are going to be applied to the transparency of one displacement map comped onto the other. If you have the displacement maps one over another as layers in photoshop,
you can use alpha maps to reveal this or that area of the maps. The video you saw it was rendered in 3Delight which has a very similar layering system as photoshop has.
I’m creating the shader for Vray now so I’m going to post it as soon as I’m done with the render in Vray.
So it’s the shader that is connects the alpha maps to the blendshapes. When a blendshape goes from 0 to 1, the value of the alpha goes from 0 to 1.
Btw, with positive, negative and corrective I intend to say that the morphing motions are the ones to be positive and negative and so on. The shapes are a lot not only three. The displacement maps are only three
because they are baked from more then one layers turned to 1.
Maps are so named after the layers. So I decided that my positive motion shapes would have been the ones that would have pulled the skin upwards.
Assigning a negative value to each of those layers would get me new shapes, that due to the nature of the linear interpolation of the morph would give me bad looking shapes.
So I resculpted those “negative” shapes storing them into new layers that I would actually recognize as those which would give me the negative motion. Funny enough the positive shapes are also
ones of positive emotions most of the time!
In few words if the brow goes up I consider it to be creating a positive motion; a negative motion would be given by the same brow going down.
Under an anatomical point of view, those muscles who would pull the brow up would give me a shape with details that would be totally different from the ones produced by
those muscles who pull the brow down. Basically one pisitive shape is not a mirrored negative shape.
This is because organic motion does not happen on a line. Ok too long. Hope it wasn’t boring.
Check also this thread, I posted some work I’ve done with my friend Justin Holt.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?161471-Banjo-Man
Hey Marco thanks for taking time to give more intel! Let’s continue the discussion on your new thread
Hey dude I’d rather keep the discussion about zbrush here. The other thread will be only about that particular image.
thansk a lot for that insight, i think i got most of it, and hopefully, sharing your vid and your shader should fill the other gaps
thanks a bunch for that, looking forward for that
you shoudl consider making a DVD for eat 3d or gnomon or whatever, i’d be well up for that and spend the money on it
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i have seen your presentation at siggraph at the pixologic booth, was really helpfull, glad to find your files reference here on the forum.
keep up the good work !
@abe_Tamazir: thanks bro, for now I’ll post few short videos on specific features. I just gotta find some time to do that.
@darklopium: thank you! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the presentation, I was hoping to hear some feedback after Siggraph since it was my first time in front of a such an audience
Hi Marco! Awesome work on facial animation, thank you for sharing your workflow.
@macro. : well you did a good job dude, i’m a student @vfs and seeing your presentation was really interesting, especially on how to maintain a good volume on the chicks and others part during the blendshape process.
don’t hesitate to share more ! 
Very cool! thanks for the breakdown.
Would love to see how many Layers you had to create. Must be allot for all those emotions?
Thanks so much guys I’m glad you like it
I’m just moving the images they don’t get lost in the forum and the discussion has a flow.
As I promised I’m also adding a short video on how sculpted the shapes
I hope it helps.
@INFINITE: Lee, the layers were quite a bit but not as many as they should have been for an actual VFX shot. I had about 20 shapes. Usually it goes up to 40-45 if the creature doesn’t talk. In this case I also optimized as mush as I could to avoid shapes in between. The topography of the head is fairly flat and bi-dimensional which allows me to sculpt avoiding crashes with things like teeth. If it was a wolf muzzle for instance I would have had to sculpt more shapes to achieve the same expressions.
So first of all you duplicate the model in its neutral pose and you give it a different color (red) so that you can always spot immediately where you have a loss of volumes. Then you make sure the duplicate mesh is in your subtool list. I figured out this whole process to keep the production of all this shapes as artistic as it can be (and especially entertaining for the artist who’s going to spend quite a bit a of time on those). You can sculpt with freedom and the only thing you have to consider is the fall off of the movement of the skin. Keep the wire visible so you can see how much the uvs are sliding and if the movement make sense (to make sense the movement has to happen on the length of a muscle). The only non-artistic part (which can still be artistic depending on how you play with it) is to re-project all the lost volumes in the bony areas using the gray mask and the duplicate mesh.
The duplicate mesh and the shape you just sculpted cant be at the highest subdivision because you dont want to reproject the skin details. You only fill the lost volumes. Those skin details need to stretch and compress with the UVs so you dont touch them unless it makes sense to do so (for instance to add a wrinkle or a smoother area). Hope this helps!
Thanks for the info Marco! …and don’t hesitate to give more intel if you feel like it! I’m sure to read it
Amazing portrait dude, really expressive !!!
Love the animated blend shapes!!
Keep rocking!
thanks so much! Hopefully I get to finish the animation soon…
cant wait to look at it and get my handds on this shader of your s
Wow Marco, this is awesome, awesome stuff!!! Watching the creature come to life with the blendshapes is so cool (& extremely well sculpted) thanks for sharing so much of your workflow and the vids 
small_orange_diamond
!