In recent tutorials, we've looked at 3D art workflows, how to smooth or harden your 3D models and making a 3D model animation-ready. From here on, we're going to start to gently ease our way into slightly more advanced areas of 3D.
The first thing we’ll look at are blend shapes, which are used in animation as a way to change the shape of a model over time. Note that the terminology varies across the best animation software. Maya calls them blend shapes, while Blender calls them shape keys and Unreal Engine 5 calls them morph targets.
Imagine a face in a neutral pose, one which needs to smile. Well, a blend shape would be perfect for this because adding a smile ‘morph target and connecting it to the main model will let us blend gradually to the smile and back again.
The way they work is you are essentially animating each vertex on the main model, telling them to go from point A to point B, point B being where the same vertex now exists on the smile morph target. The downside is that they travel in a direct line, from A to B, so blend shapes are no good for animating something that needs to follow an arc, like an eyelid moving over an eyeball.
What’s great about blend shapes is they are easy to set up but can give very organic feeling movements, so let’s take a look at how we go about setting them up.
If you need a device to work on, see our guides to the best laptops for animation and the best drawing tablets.
Three steps to creating animation blend shapes
01. Create your morph targets
The first step when setting up blend shapes is to duplicate your main model, once for each face shape you need. These new models are your morph targets.
It’s best when working on these to move them apart so you can see them all individually.
02. Generate the shapes
Next, work you way through the morph targets, adjusting them to form the various shapes you need. This can be done by editing the vertices individually, but sculpting tools can often give you a quicker and more organic-looking result.
03. Connect using a blend shape
Finally, use your application’s blend shape tool to connect the morph targets to the main model. The resulting blend shape node will now contain a list of the morph targets with a slider next to each; these can then be animated to bring your character to life.
This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.
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