Facial animation on LEGO minifigure rig
Robbert started this discussion in Help and Tips

Is there any feature in the premium or free minifigure rig to add facial animation or is there any simple way to do facial animation in a LEGO Movie kinda style?

8 replies · Page 1 of 1

No, I'm afraid there isn't. You'd have to manually draw your textures and apply them in an animated form.

You can find good charts online for getting the proper mouth poses. Try this site if you're interested: https://clipartxtras.com/categories/view/64437b8640e60f922c90345fb7f2d689d5ff11b6/simple-talking-mouth-drawing.html

Hope this helps! 😃

But how do i animate this? And also do lipsyncing?

You would want to either cut out some example images digitally, or make your own. Preferably if you are capable/willing to learn, making your own would be the best option because of licensing and customization.

To animate, you'd basically create a stop motion animation using the mouths you want on the face/head texture. I recommend using HitFilm Express to do that, and to cut out your images/textures, but if you're experienced in Photoshop/GIMP/Inkscape then use that to cut your images out.

Regarding lipsyncing, use what you want the character to say (have your desired audio ready) and decide what mouth shapes need to go in at the right times. Use a video editing program and have your vocal track in the same timeline so you can match them easier.

For more info see:

https://www.mecabricks.com/en/forum/topic/268

https://www.mecabricks.com/en/forum/topic/1011

[youtube]UNbFf-h8-vY[/youtube]

Will this work with the premium lego rig?
https://youtu.be/5NlvgMYZgaY

It could, but you may need to rework some of the UV maps. If I were you, I'd use the supplied mouth shapes as the ones you need pasted onto the Mecabricks head texture of your choice.

For example, using this texture: https://www.mecabricks.com/assets/parts/maps/decoration/3626d153.png and adding the mouth movements to it as needed. That way the UV map will be the proper one for the Hi-Res Minifig, and it will fit right.

I have made some very basic tutorials not to long ago, but my rig I have rn is very advanced, and is very close to the rig they used in the movie, and it can achieve the same facial expressions! It also raps around the lego minifigure's head, the rig doesnt use textures as the mouth, and is actually like a normal blender mouth rig, and can be posed in any shape you want!
Here are some of the thumbnails from the pose library that I have made with my rig: https://imgur.com/a/rWkSWnY
Here are the tutorials I made. very basic.
part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8EmSZW9wLg
part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v😛VQ-jT3q_p0&t

I hope you guys like the stuff I have been working hard on!

Citrine, I don't suppose there's any way to make that work on a face like the Series 16 Cyborg's, would there?
https://www.mecabricks.com/en/models/OJV2yOpBvyQ

Its possible!

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