What I would do is very similar to BlenRig5's eyelid: I'd create a grid of bones around the eyelids that stretch to target bones; drive the target bones using a "nest" of bones, originating of the center of the eyeball; add action constraints to the stretch targets to fine-tune the movement; further tweak it using shape keys, so it looks more natural and maybe add a shrinkwrap modifier to eliminate potential intersections, and then finally realize that a week has passed since I originally started and I could've spent all that time doing something more productive.. I guess you can really appreciate the simplicity of the rigs you build in these tutorials!
Haha totally, I have wasted many many weeks trying different types of eye rigs. These are more the remains of my wasted attempts. Although I do really like the blend rig method you mentioned!
Very very nice & impressive tutorial dude. This is the best eye rig & animation available on this platform. It helps me a lot. Lots of love & respect from Kolkata, India.
What about rigging 3 or 4 splines seperately for upper and lower eyelids (or mesh edges?) each with 4 points whose vertexes get their position from vertexes on the eyeball, then hooks at intervals across the eyelids upper and lower. Then the first row of hooks has their own follow path. Perhaps the second row also uses the follow path but the percentage or influence is a fraction of the first rows influence, say 25% via expression. The following 2 rows get 50% and 75% of the first row? Maybe thus way one can deform the eyeball with a lattice and everything is slaved effectively to the eyeball surface. One could perhaps make controls to taper the effect horizontally for happy or angry eyelids? Just my ponderings
That is another way I have tried, and this actually works well. The tough part is integrating this into a system with eyebrows and cheek muscles. That being said I have built entire spline based rigs in the past. The deform bones connect to a spline, then the splines connect to a control rig. This works really well for toony characters and can be a bit nicer than bendy bones. Great idea!
I appreciate the 3 awesome demonstrations for something that may seem too simple when there's actually more than meets the eye. No lame pun intended. On a side note: I tried to hard to set up a rig using Blenrig 5. I tried to overcome all the errors and glitches, but no joy. Seems like Blender 2.93 is not very compatible with Blenrig 5. If you however managed to use the addon, could you please make a tutorial on how to use it one day?
I need help. I got to the weight painting part but can't select any of the bones. I tried redoing the parent as well as different parent methods but none of them are working.
@LevelPixelLevel Hey, I was following your tutorial on rigging eyelids in Blender and was wondering how the steps would change for a character with no topology for lower eyelids.
Quick question. I want to use this eyelid rig with an entire character mesh but when I move the head mesh with its bone the eyelids mesh won't follow. I know it has to do with the eyelid part of the mesh not being weight painted to the head boner and if I were to weight paint that part of the mesh to head I'd lose the eyelid blink data. Is there a way I can still keep the eyelid rig and let it move with the rest of the head?
I've figured my problem out. I just had to weight paint some vertices that were not weight painted to the eyelids or the face. everything is working smoothly now.
Is it possible to use this same setup for making the eyelids open wider, in conjunction with the blinking setup? So basically using the same action constraint method to make a setup that can go wide-eyed and blink as well?
Hi! That is this method here: ua-cam.com/video/_7rk-zFvVis/v-deo.html Sorry, I should have been more clear about that. I call it the fan method as the bones look like they are moving in a fan.
really weird thing is happening with the action constrains, target location doesnt work, only the rotations seems to effects. i tried world and local space for location, didnt work. might you know why?
Hmm sometimes that are odd, make sure your values are correct in the file. Here I go through some very simple ideas to some more advanced concepts. ua-cam.com/video/5JmPFsIEgHI/v-deo.html
I did make this video... although a lot of people found that it didn't work, let me know what you think: ua-cam.com/video/haBMilkToFE/v-deo.html&ab_channel=LevelPixelLevel
What I would do is very similar to BlenRig5's eyelid: I'd create a grid of bones around the eyelids that stretch to target bones; drive the target bones using a "nest" of bones, originating of the center of the eyeball; add action constraints to the stretch targets to fine-tune the movement; further tweak it using shape keys, so it looks more natural and maybe add a shrinkwrap modifier to eliminate potential intersections, and then finally realize that a week has passed since I originally started and I could've spent all that time doing something more productive.. I guess you can really appreciate the simplicity of the rigs you build in these tutorials!
Haha totally, I have wasted many many weeks trying different types of eye rigs. These are more the remains of my wasted attempts. Although I do really like the blend rig method you mentioned!
This tutorial made me clap my hands at my computer. Very well done sir, very well done.
"eyeballing where you want them to be". thx for the share - good stuff
you are the best..thanku
kindly keep up the good work
Finally!!!! 🎉🎉🎉 A useful tutorial about eyelids. Thank you!
Very very nice & impressive tutorial dude. This is the best eye rig & animation available on this platform. It helps me a lot. Lots of love & respect from Kolkata, India.
Glad you found it helpful!!!
If you want a more detailed explanation on Action Constraints, check out this video: ua-cam.com/video/5JmPFsIEgHI/v-deo.html
it was so informative thanku sir
What about rigging 3 or 4 splines seperately for upper and lower eyelids (or mesh edges?) each with 4 points whose vertexes get their position from vertexes on the eyeball, then hooks at intervals across the eyelids upper and lower. Then the first row of hooks has their own follow path. Perhaps the second row also uses the follow path but the percentage or influence is a fraction of the first rows influence, say 25% via expression. The following 2 rows get 50% and 75% of the first row? Maybe thus way one can deform the eyeball with a lattice and everything is slaved effectively to the eyeball surface. One could perhaps make controls to taper the effect horizontally for happy or angry eyelids? Just my ponderings
That is another way I have tried, and this actually works well. The tough part is integrating this into a system with eyebrows and cheek muscles. That being said I have built entire spline based rigs in the past. The deform bones connect to a spline, then the splines connect to a control rig. This works really well for toony characters and can be a bit nicer than bendy bones. Great idea!
Really nice tutorial! Thanks a lot :) I just noticed I can't turn on notifications on new videos by you even tho I subscribed. Is that intentional?
I appreciate the 3 awesome demonstrations for something that may seem too simple when there's actually more than meets the eye. No lame pun intended. On a side note: I tried to hard to set up a rig using Blenrig 5. I tried to overcome all the errors and glitches, but no joy. Seems like Blender 2.93 is not very compatible with Blenrig 5. If you however managed to use the addon, could you please make a tutorial on how to use it one day?
I need help. I got to the weight painting part but can't select any of the bones. I tried redoing the parent as well as different parent methods but none of them are working.
Nevermind. I found your video and it fixed it for me.
@LevelPixelLevel Hey, I was following your tutorial on rigging eyelids in Blender and was wondering how the steps would change for a character with no topology for lower eyelids.
Hmm, for this you may want to treat the cheek as a lower lid, or give the upper eyelid enough detail so that is can move all the way down the eye.
Quick question. I want to use this eyelid rig with an entire character mesh but when I move the head mesh with its bone the eyelids mesh won't follow. I know it has to do with the eyelid part of the mesh not being weight painted to the head boner and if I were to weight paint that part of the mesh to head I'd lose the eyelid blink data. Is there a way I can still keep the eyelid rig and let it move with the rest of the head?
I've figured my problem out. I just had to weight paint some vertices that were not weight painted to the eyelids or the face. everything is working smoothly now.
Is it possible to use this same setup for making the eyelids open wider, in conjunction with the blinking setup? So basically using the same action constraint method to make a setup that can go wide-eyed and blink as well?
Yeah, you can use another action to go wider, or build it so that the animation starts at wide, then goes to default then to blink :)
could you use this method on hands to easily switch between a fist and an open hand?
Could this same thing be applied to a mouth rig too?
Hi, thanks for this really cool use of action constraint. You keep mentioning fan based eye rig? What is that?
Hi! That is this method here: ua-cam.com/video/_7rk-zFvVis/v-deo.html
Sorry, I should have been more clear about that. I call it the fan method as the bones look like they are moving in a fan.
really weird thing is happening with the action constrains, target location doesnt work, only the rotations seems to effects. i tried world and local space for location, didnt work. might you know why?
Hmm sometimes that are odd, make sure your values are correct in the file. Here I go through some very simple ideas to some more advanced concepts. ua-cam.com/video/5JmPFsIEgHI/v-deo.html
13:56
hey uhh i cant select bones in the weight paint mode, how do i fix that?
I did make this video... although a lot of people found that it didn't work, let me know what you think: ua-cam.com/video/haBMilkToFE/v-deo.html&ab_channel=LevelPixelLevel
@@LevelPixelLeveli still cant select it