Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right

Part III. Animating and Modeling the Eyes and Brows

Well, here we are. What Part II was to the lower half of the face, Part III is to the top half of the face. With the mouth, and especially with sync, the focus is functional—the bulk of the work is in convincing people that the character is speaking. Here, in the eyes and brows, the goals have flipped. The eyes and brows convince an audience that our character lives, and so emotion has priority over function. Our characters plot the things they do before they do them, they react—in short, they think.

First I'll review and expand upon the concepts I talked about in Chapters 2 and 3 ("What the Eyes and Brows Tell Us" and "Facial Landmarking," respectively), and then I'll guide you through creating ...