Week 9: Shape Keys and Drivers

This week we were looking at making shape keys to be used for things like facial animation. I really struggled to understand how they worked at first, I needed to watch the tutorial videos a few times before the idea really clicked.

You start by getting the model, we used Suzzanne the monkey model in Blender, and going to Object Data Properties to add a base in shape keys. Then you add another shape key, go into edit mode and alter the model in whatever way you need. Go out of edit mode and now you can adjust the value to manipulate it.

The next part was setting up the armatures and a base, you need a base to help ground the model and use it to move the model easily. I added the bones like normal but changed their shape in pose mode to be that of the circle I used for the base to make posing easier. Once I’d sized an positioned the bones to where I wanted them I moved onto setting up the Drivers. In the shape keys menu I added a driver to the value of whatever key I was working on, then opened the driver editor menu.

I clicked on the shape key, connected the object to the armature and the bone I wanted, then changed the Type to Y Location, and the Space to Local Space. I don’t fully get the maths of the Expression section but the videos were helpful so I got that sorted.
I haven’t started on the other tasks in the tutorial videos yet but when I do I’ll update this blog.

After following the tutorial videos I added a few of my own keys, like having the eyelids close. I’m looking forward for later years when I need to apply these for more complex facial animations and dialogue.