Facial Animation for 3D Character Animator

New for CC5 / iC8.6

HD Facial Animation & MetaHuman Animator Support

Enhanced Facial Profiles
Non-linear & Corrective Expressions
MetaHuman Animator Compatiblility

HD Profile & Control

Next-generation HD facial rig delivers unparalleled precision with 262 blendshapes and 128 corrective morphs, giving you complete control over every nuanced expression in stunning detail. Download HD Face Control | Tutorial | Manual

Extended+ Profile

The Extended Plus Profile enhances CC3+ characters for iPhone and AccuFACE mocap, adding new blendshapes, refined lip-sync, and corrective morphs for higher-quality facial animation. Manual

Non-linear Facial Movement

Compatible with iPhone, AccuFACE, and MetaHuman Animation, CC5 adds non-linear facial animation with curve-based controls, simulating realistic muscle behaviors such as sticky lips, elastic puckers, and natural brow movement.

Corrective Expressions

Raw mocap data can trigger unwanted blends. The Corrective Morph System keeps expressions natural, preventing distortion and preserving structure, with options for custom fixes in extreme or unique cases. Manual

Utilize MHA Animation

Whether you choose to use MetaHuman Animator (MHA) to capture realistic facial performances for iClone editing, or animate CC characters directly in Unreal Engine, a comprehensive workflow is available. Seamlessly import MetaHuman animations created with iPhone depth video, recorded video and audio files, or live capture from a webcam or microphone. Tutorial

Features above require CC5

ENGAGING LOOK-AT CONSTRAINTS New in v8.2

Eye-Driven Facial Morphs
Eyes-Neck-Torso Weight
Levels of Engagement

Morphs & Wrinkles Actuate with Eye Movement

Simulate natural awareness to an object or maintain eye contact to the camera.
Eyelids and eyebrows naturally move with the eyeballs when the character is looking around. Automatic asymmetry helps to overcome the uncanny valley.
Subtle wrinkles are triggered around the eyes and forehead for all types of facial expressions like frowns and smirks.

Eye-Neck-Torso Weight

Adjustable look-at constraint ratio between the eyes, neck, and torso can alter the actor’s mannerism.
Enhanced morph shapes for head up and down movements.

Keyable Engagement Levels

Choose between different engagement levels from quick glances to intense gazes.
Recruit the correct body parts to sell the motion, from isolated eye movements to the coordination with the rest of the body.
Set keys to alternate the eye, neck, and torso engagement ranges.

MOUSE PUPPETEERING WITH PERSONA FACIAL PROFILES

Easily start with 11 functional puppet profiles each governing dedicated puppetting range. Users can selectively layer (create, blend or overwrite) puppet features to complete a full facial animation. Four dedicated character profiles showcase distinctive emotions and personalities, each for the CC4 avatars - Kevin, Camila, and for Humanoids - Coyote and T-REX.

FACE KEY EDITING TO FINE-TUNE FEATURE DETAILS

Once you have created facial expressions through lipsyncing, facial mocap or puppeteering, then you can fine-tune feature details by using the Face Key Editor. These facial keys will be overlaid and blended with existing expressions and stored in the Timeline track for further editing.

Muscle Panel
Expression Presets
Morph Slider
Scalable Expression

Muscle Panel

Mouse drag to drive the corresponding muscle movement along eyelids, eyes, brows, cheeks, mouth, lips, and nasal area.
Options for Symmetry and associated Head Rotation.
Adjustable expressiveness to accommodate subtle to drastic manipulations.
Additional muscle controls for characters with 140+ Extended Facial Profile, other than more secondary menus for lips, eyes, tongue, and four extra controls for Eyelash, Eyeball (pupil), Neck and Ears are supported.

Expression Presets

Extensive click-to-apply expression library categorized in emotional states - happy, sad, angry, disgust, fear, and surprise, with expressive level adjustment.
Facial parts can be used for combining expression from different facial area.
Additional tongue pose and FACS are also available.

Morph Slider

Through Morph Sliders, directly access 60+ Standard or 140+ Extended blendshapes. There are several unique values of using morphs sliders giveing complete control over expression details; allowing input of extrapolated strength values (+/- 200 ); observe what blendshapes are being triggered through the Muscle Panel and Expression Presets. Furthermore, keyword search custom target morphs and actually see the blendshape names and values when exporting to external 3D tools.

Flexible Upgrade and Downgrade

Designers can easily upgrade or downgrade from 60 to 140 blendshapes in their actors’ expression details when a certain level of export is required with Character Creator’s scalable expression system.
Know More >

CHARACTER-CENTRIC TIMELINE TRACKS

Designers can easily upgrade or downgrade from 60 to 140 blendshapes in their actors’ expression details when a certain level of export is required with Character Creator’s scalable expression system.

Basic Level (4)

Major logical facial parts

Feature Level (16)

All facial features

Morph Level (63+/150+)

All the expression morphs:
- 63+ for Standard profile
- 150+ for Extended profile

PRO-LEVEL CURVE EDITING

Cartoon Performance
Follow Through

Creating Cartoon Performances

Adapt all the skills of classic animation training to your iClone animations. Select a section of motion keys from the timeline and start applying curves to achieve the level-up performance.
Exercise full control over time and space adjustments. Create stepped, exaggerated follow through, and more for cartoon animation.

Exaggerated Follow Through

Offset the timing of different facial morphs to achieve a morph-level facial follow through effect.

EXQUISITE EXPRESSIONS WITH DYNAMIC WRINKLES New in iC8.2 & CC4.2

The Wrinkle System is highly customizable and can simulate exceptional facial expression details in real-time. It can upgrade your CC characters and redefine the realism of their talking facial features by triggering dynamic wrinkles through any facial movement.

Customizable Settings
Reactive Wrinkles
Universally Compatible

Custom Wrinkle Settings

Expression Wrinkles are divided into 13 common facial regions that govern the wrinkle lines, crows feet, smile lines, and more.
Intensify or neutralize any target region of the face, down to the individual channel map like Normals, AO, and Redness.
Alter the Rate of Appearance to delay or preempt the micro-movements of the fasciae while the expression-driven muscles are flexed.

Reactive Expression Wrinkles

Upon activation, the expression wrinkles are synchronized with the facial movements that are triggered by a range of animation tools in iClone, including Face Key Editor, Face Puppet, Look-at Constraints, as well as features such as Lip-sync and Facial Mocap.

Works with Any CC Character

General Wrinkles can be applied to any CC3+ character, naturally blended with different skin tones, and compatible with CC SkinGen.
The CC Wrinkle shader supports high-res multi-texture blending without compromising real-time performance.

3D FACIAL EXPRESSION