The Expanse
I took over as Lead Character Artist a year into production when the former lead left the company. Two weeks later the AD left for personal reasons.
My job was to maintain the momentum and land the plane. With help from all the team members and directors, we released a critically successful result.
Most of the characters had been worked out by the time I became part of the team…I refined all of their materials and made a few new models as the story and lighting developed, optimized and built nearly everyone’s hair (Avasarala and the initial hair for Toussaint was Jose Mario Villafranca).
There is an enormous amount of nuance in making blendshapes. One example might be on characters rolling closer to realistic motion, it is important to maintain the solid skull underneath, as is shown with the orbital bones keeping their influence, conveying a feeling of sliding across the bone as in life.
Toussaint’s inner and outer brow raisers
This is part of a studio document meant to help anyone interested in understanding the mechanics and methods of each shape we used, including any added shapes not included with the basic FACS.
Smile
A genuine smile comes from a combination of shapes, and unique actors will use unexpected shapes in their portrayal of a character, like Upper Lip raiser or Dimpler. How the natural fat in the face and how it differs with age needs to be considered in how the volumes and planes change when they are compacted or stretched.
Some FACS shapes
These are from the Zbrush file, I’m going through the first few individual shapes broken into unique actions. Most of them are further broken (I used a plug called “SHAPES” in Maya) right and left and top and bottom. Some, like Pucker and Funneler, are all four. The Expanse was on a very ambitious time frame, quicker than most. We chose a more streamlined set of shapes for a better chance at having time to iterate. Each time a change is made, it’s easier to update the smaller version than the larger one. We chose the most needed levers requested by the animation team.
Most 3D heads pivot the eye from a point, but in reality when the muscles pull, its more like reins on a horse. The eye is in a cocoon of connective tissue, the optical nerve and fat...holding it in place like very thick pillows. When one or more of the muscles trigger, it pulls the eye into a turn and in doing so, shifts in its semi flexible wrapping. That's why, in addition to the cornea deformation of the lids, the area around the eyeball also shifts slightly, displacing the fat around the orbit perimeter.
I built Julie Mau late in the production when we were approved. This is the basic in game head mesh
These core expressions are built from individual combined FACS shapes.
I printed our Julie Mau version in 3D to see how she looked in the actual world.
Avasarala in Zbrush...and she is not happy about it.
Avasarala smile. The skilled artist Jose Villafranca sculpted our stylized likeness and the hair with some direction from the AD and myself, I made the facial blendshapes for the animators to translate her performance. In person, Shohreh Aghdashloo is a wonderful human, and the whole team really enjoyed their time with her.
Avasarala in game (used with permission from Jose Villafranca's portfolio). Model is Jose's excellent work, I did the blendshapes and final material pass.
Avasarala in game (used with permission from Jose Villafranca's portfolio). Model is Jose's excellent work, I did the blendshapes and final material pass.
Maya - head hair behind
Maya - head hair front
Maya hair in game
I built Drummer's hair. Drummers model was made by the incredible skills of original lead Ryan-John Keates and I refined the materials based on the changing in-game visuals over time
I built Drummer's hair. Drummers model was made by the incredible skills of original lead Ryan-John Keates and I refined the materials based on the changing in-game visuals over time
I built Drummer's hair. Drummers model was made by the incredible skills of original lead Ryan-John Keates and I refined the materials based on the changing in-game visuals over time
I built Drummer's hair. Drummers model was made by the incredible skills of original lead Ryan-John Keates and I refined the materials based on the changing in-game visuals over time
I made the Drummer hair mesh and refined her materials to work with our updated lighting
I built Rayen's hair and polished his textures and materials (for nearly all of the characters.
Old dead belter mesh
Jose Villafranca made this model of Toussaint, I made the hair and the blend shapes, and a final texture pass to match our updated lighting.
Jose Villafranca made this model of Toussaint, I made the hair and the blend shapes, and a final texture pass to match our updated lighting
Jose Villafranca made this model of Toussaint, I made the hair and the blend shapes, and a final texture pass to match our updated lighting
Jose Villafranca made this model of Toussaint, I made the hair and the blend shapes, and a final texture pass to match our updated lighting
Jose Villafranca made this model of Toussaint, I made the hair and the blend shapes, and a final texture pass to match our updated lighting
I did the full pass on Khans' head material and textures as I did on every model in the game. RJ Keats made the model.