Shape Editor I

The Shape Editor is a tool for modeling Facial Shapes (targets).

Video

To see how the Shape Editor looks in action, you can also watch this Video.
But keep in mind that some menu options changed since the time of making that video.

You can open the Shape Editor with the shelf button

It's NOT the Pose Editor!

You might find a few similarities to the Pose Editor, but the architecture and how we use it is different:

Shape Editor	Pose Editor
Runs in a separate file that gets imported in importBlendShapeFile()	Runs on the actual rig
Focuses on sculpting and managing main/combo targets	Focuses on evaluations with interpolators, but also does sculpting
Creates one blendShape for the whole setup	Creates a blendShape for each mesh
The EDIT button handles ALL the meshes inside the blendShape	The EDIT button only does what you have selected before clicking it
Mirroring works with right click on the mesh in the meshes table. And meshes still need to get selected in scene, too	Mirroring works with right click on the Target, having the meshes selected

Getting Started

You can select any polygon mesh, and click the << button:

If that polygon mesh wasn't used with the Shape Editor yet, it'll ask you to choose a Target List.
By default you just have cartoon and general. If you are creating a blendShape rig where you want to do most shapes including mouth, eyes, etc with blendShapes - choose general. But if you are doing a rig where you want do do most targets with splines, then cartoon is a better start, because it only lists the targets that doesn't have spline rigs.

What did he do under the hood?
He created a new blendShape node. And all the Targets that you see in the UI are basically targets on the blendShape, just like what you've probably already created before:

Note

You are not limited to just general or cartoon! Later in Adding More Main Targets you'll see how to either create your own custom lists or just add targets to your existing collection.

Now to sculpt some main targets by clicking the Edit button and sculpt:

Comparing with Pose Editor

Here we have a similarity to the Pose Editor but also a difference. While in the Pose Editor you also have those EDIT buttons that you use to sculpt the Targets, in the Pose Editor you have to select the meshes, while in the Shape Editor it just does it on all the meshes that are in the collection.

Kangaroo Tool Tip

While in the gif above I just selected vertices and moved them, you can do a lot more. For example you can use the sculpting tools (Mesh Tools -> Sculpting Tools) or use some Kangaroo Geometry Tools such as the Match or Smooth Vertices tools.

Combos

Combos - Create Them

Combo targets is the Table on the right side. You can create any combination between 2, 3, 4, ... Main Targets. Most of the time we create combination of just 2 targets. Sometimes 3, and very rarely 4.
For a combination of 2 targets the combo would be called for example cornerUp_upperUp. A combination of 3 would be cornerUp_noseWrinkler_upperUp. It's basically the main targets' names ordered alphabetically and separated by a single _.

Note

You will never have to name them yourself, the tool takes care of it. You just need to be aware that whenever you create a Main Target yourself, it cannot have the _ sign in there.

Creating them is easy, just select the main targets, right click -> create combo Targets:

Combos - Multiply/Minimum

In the gif above you can see that in the end we switch between the evaluation modes Muliply and Minimum.
Multiply means that the main targets are just multiplied. So if cornerUp is activated 0.8 and upperUp is activated 0.5, the combination will be 0.4 (0.8 * 0.5).
And in Minimum in the same example it would be 0.5, because 0.5 is the smaller one between 0.8 and 0.5.

Both modes have pros and cons. If you use Multiply, the result will be smoother but the issue is that the shape will not be driven linearly when all main targets are being activated the same time. For example if you have 2 main targets that are both activated as 0.5, the combo target will be 0.25. But ideally it should also be 0.5. Look at this example where we have a combination of 3 Main Targets. See how it moves slower at smaller values, and then speeds up at higher values?

If you need it to run linearly, you can switch to Minimum. If all main targets are 0.5, the combo target would be 0.5, too. But Minimum has the ugly disadvantage that it's not as smooth as Multiply. In certain situations you'll find that as one main target is being activated slowly, the combo might suddenly change from getting activated to not reacting.
Look at this example. See how it moves more linear, but if I move one alone it starts activating at one point? Animators hate that!

Warning

The disadvantages of both modes (Multiply and Minimum) are only getting worse the more Main Targets you use for the combo. So keep it to a minimum! Any combination of more than 3 targets can get very nasty.

Combos - add Percentage

When you open the blendShapes.ma on the THOMAS asset, you'll see a combo called jawOpen50_mouthClose. This just means that the jawOpen will only go to 0.5 (50 %):

Changing and adding percentages happens through the marking menu:

Try it out, but don't overuse it! The art of sculpting shapes is making this work with the simplest logics. But if you do need the extra complexity, it's there.

Extra Sliders

At the bottom you see a lot of sliders. Those are just representations of how the rig will later set them up. So they are basically a great way to get a feeling of how they will work later.
On each slider you could also isolate the targets with the right click menu, so you can see what targets are driven by them.
Open the Shape Editor File from the templates asset THOMAS, and play around with the sliders:

Mirror

Mirroring contains 2 parts. Creating Mirror Table, and actually Mirroring

Mirror Table

Right click on the mesh in the Mesh Table at the bottom right:

Here's a list of the options:

Table	Description
middle mesh, edgeflow	maping vertices through the middle edge (edgeflow) algorithm
middle mesh, vertex positions	mapping through vertex positions
middle mesh, face points	finds point on face, and does barycentric mapping
side meshes, ids	needs 2 meshes with same vertex orders
side meshes, vertex positions	needs 2 meshes, maps by vertex positions
side meshes, face points	needs 2 meshes, maps by point on face and barycentric coordinates

Actually Mirroring

Mirroring also works on vertex selection. But you do need to right click on the actual mesh for the mirror.

Don't Forget

Do not forget to select the mesh in scene! Sometimes we assume that when we right click on the actual mesh in the UI it would do the mesh. But from the power of being able to select vertices comes the responsibility to also select the mesh in scene.

Inbetweens

You can add inbetweens to any Target.

Interpolate

Inbetweens are basically another shape stored in the node. It may not appear like this at first because when you apply the inbetween, it gives it a default shape which is the interpolated shape at the position of where you apply it.
BUT if you change the Full Target, the inbetween will NOT change.
But there's a solution to it - you can re-interpolate the inbetweens. You'll loose the shape that you sculpted on the inbetween, but it'll follow again that the full shape does. You'll see the options on the right click menu:

Note

You'll see the words All Inbetweens and Closest Inbetwween a lot in the Shape Editor. It's relevant when you have more than one inbetween. So in the picture above where there are 3 inbetweens (red marks) the current weight is closer to the first one, so the Closest Inbetween would only touch the first one.

Watch Out

When the blendShapesAndSliders() adds the blendShapes, the logic of inbetweens is a bit complicated because of a few mathematical challenges on how inbetweens work in general. This means in certain situations you might find things behaving a bit strange.
It's recommended to keep inbetweens to minimum. And if you do use them, watch out for the results carefully.

Meshes

Meshes - Add Secondary Meshes

Easy, just select them and add them with the right click menu:

Kangaroo Tool Tip

By default they are just sitting there and not following the main skin. But you can make it follow the skin with the Tools explained in Shape Editor 2.

Meshes - Main Mesh

It's important to keep the Main Mesh (skin in this example) as the main mesh. It's usually always the case, unless you start replacing a few meshes. But it's easily fixed with right click menu:

Meshes - Model Change

same topology

If the model changed in topology, it's easy. Just select the new mesh, and then with right click on the mesh that you want to change -> Model Change from "xxx" to "xxx"

different topology

If the overall shape is still the same and modeling just changed the topology a bit, it's a bit of a manual process, but it's not difficult:
1. rename the old mesh
2. restart the shape editor
3. add the new mesh (with correct name!)
4. warp the new mesh to the old mesh
5. if the old mesh was the main mesh: set it as Main Mesh
6. check the lips on open targets! Targets like jawOpen. upperUp or lowerDown can get screwed on warp. If they are screwed, either fix them manually or try the Warp UVs

different topology and different shape

If the topology is different AND the shape is entirely different, we are basically talking about making a new character. Check Shape Editor 2 - Transfer to New Character.