Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right

by Jason Osipa

"No other book to date presents facial animation concepts, theory, and practical application with the authority that Stop Staring does."
—TIEM Design Crafting believable facial animation is one of the most challenging, yet rewarding aspects of 3D graphics. Done right, this art breathes life into otherwise deadpan faces. In this extraordinary book, professional animator Jason Osipa teaches you how to achieve realistic facial modeling and animation. Using detailed practical examples complemented with high-quality images and a touch of humor, Osipa leads you from design and modeling to rigging and animation. The CD and full-color insert demonstrate techniques you can use to fine-tune your facial animations. Reviewed and approved by Alias|Wavefront, Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right, uses the Academy Award(r) winning Maya(r) 3D animation and effects software as the focus for its examples, yet the principles and techniques are described in ways that will be helpful to anyone working on facial modeling and animation. Mastering the Face
Start out by getting familiar with the range of possible facial expressions, then focus on animating and modeling the mouth, eyes and brows. When you're ready to bring it all together, you can generate a scene from concept to completion. Topics covered include: Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference, Education

368 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

If you're learning 3D character modeling, this book might be for you. Specifically, it deals with modeling and animating the head.

Jason Osipa has written a very good step-by-step tutorial book.

This book touches the following subjects:

* Learn visimes and lip sync techniques
* Construct a mouth and mouth keys
* Explore the process of facial landmarking
* Master the cartoon techniques of squash and stretch
* Harness the latest advanced blend extraction tools
* Create interfaces for your faces
* Understand skeletal setup, weighting, and rigging

In short, this book is about modeling and rigging the face. Modeling will include creating the head with the different blend shapes for the mouth to simulate visimes. There's not much on texturing and rendering. For texturing, it teaches enough to get the basic UV mapping right on the face.

The tutorials have plenty of accompanying screenshots with clear descriptions. I have absolutely no problems following along. All the chapter files are located in a CD provided.

The software package used is Maya. The instructions written are not tied to any specific Maya versions, meaning it will remain timeless unless 3D conventions are changed (e.g. polygons are not called polygons in the future). Users of different versions of Maya should have no problems following along.

Users of other 3D programs will have to take note that the blending and weighting tutorials are used with a Maya interface. That might make following hard or impossible, but I'm speaking from a I-only-know-Maya perspective. As for modeling, the lessons are universal and can be followed with any 3D software. But most 3D instructional books already have human modeling tutorials.

This book is suitable for beginner to advanced users. It's a very good book for learning in depth facial modeling and animation. Maya users will gain the most from this book.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should be back to review shortly

[Maya Senen · Rating 3 out of 5]

From an animator's point of view, believe it or not, Osipa can get you to model and rig. I know- unbelievable. It is true. He also has a bit of humor to his tone and explains in a well-rounded way.

This book is a must for anyone learning about facial anything, as it pertains to computer animation software- even traditional animation! In addition to modeling and rigging, Osipa also gives some super simple but super solid principles of lip sync. This is part of the well-rounded approach. He explains why and how to build something that will work for an animation style.

This book is irreplaceable. Though I have "Read" it, I will continue to read it in spots for years to come as a great resource.

[Jer · Rating 3 out of 5]

"How to build good blendshapes." is how I see this book. I'm not too big of a fan of the controls, mostly due to the difficulty in troubleshooting expression driven setups. I prefer rigging w/ Maya's utility nodes. Easier to track down problems and you get picky... you could say they're more efficient too.

[Nadja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've seen so far for everything that regards the creation of a 3d character face in Maya and not only.
Just one quick suggestion: don't read it entirely, although it might be helpful even that way. Choose the parts that should be useful to what you are currently doing.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

some good facial rigging ideas here.

[Toby]

very very good book for learning facial modeling and rigging for animation process.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book on lip syncing for animation. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't fully comment and the facial modeling part, but I'm sure it's a great book overall.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing facial animation refrence book

[Abby Goldsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably best if you use Maya.

[Gerardo Vargas]

Excellent book on rigging. Applicable to all 3D software suites.

[Nikhil · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Alex Hogan]

Great setup book for the time