MORPHING

When creating facial animations morphing is usually used. This technique uses morph targets to create various expressions or versions of the original mesh. After creating the morph targets the original mesh picks these targets and acquires their new attributes. All the animator is left to do is to indicate how much of the morph target will be done by the mesh. Let me show you how morphing is generally accomplished.

Generally, you begin by preparing the number of targets and applying deformation techniques on these morph targets.

Figure 5-6. Morph targets with bend, taper and twist modifiers.

After that you apply the ‘Morpher’ modifier from the modifier list. In the ‘Channel List’ roll-out, assign each empty slot to the morph targets by picking the deformed mesh.

Figure 5-7. The Morpher modifier is applied to the cylinder.

Now, you can deform the cylinder by just increasing or decreasing the values of the channel list items.

Figure 5-8. The cylinder is deformed by using Morpher.