Animating Facial Expressions Using Blend Shapes

As the name suggests, a blend shape deformer blends, or interpolates, between variations of a geometric form. A blend shape deformer uses one or more blend shape targets. These targets are duplicates of the original model that have been modified using a variety of modeling techniques.

Animating facial expressions for characters is usually accomplished through the use of blend shapes.

Although this is not the only way to animate expressions and speech, it is the most common because it is relatively straightforward to set up and animate. In this section, you'll learn how to create blend shape targets, paint blend shape weights, create a blend shape deformer, and build a simple facial animation rig.