Instead of hijacking the "0-04-08 wip" thread, I thought on opening this discussion here.

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Interesting. I've been using the FACE interface on a few characters and I found some of those characters didn't seem to have the depth on their facial pulls and pushes. For instance, take a look at this scene from 1_02_24:
[attachmentid=22572]
The expression is largely exagerated but it is clearly visible that the mouth corners are not pulled back or are not pulled back far enough. Thisis usually not obvious when the character is seen full face but it becomes more and more objious as the character turns to a 3/4 view.

I had the same issues with ScareCrow. And I also had some issues when the mouth is in the opposite shape, what Osipa calls the "Narow" mouth, where the sides of the lips pass through the theeth.

I didn't examine all the characters, just some of them and those I examined seemed to have this same set of issues.

It might be worth taking a second look at the facial poses.

I'm not at my computer to check right now, but it appears you're right. Woot was an early rigged model but I can't remember if I started pulling the corners back in later models. If not, it should be easy enough to fix.

The thing is I don't know if pulling them back will mess up other combined null poses. I don't have Osipa's book to check exactly what the "mouth corner's null" should do.

I hate to scan pages from books and post them especially when I have such high respect for the books and the authors that took all the time to perfect their knowledge and write books to teach us all.

There are two books that I really consider an absolute must for anybody wanting to become animators. "Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right" by Jason Osipa and "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression" by Gary Faigin.

I will include two scans from both book in the spirit of a sort of review, showing how those two books can indeed be of immense help when come time to put expressions on out character faces and whn come time to prepare those expressions through rigs. I hope that this can incite people to buy those books.

Here are two scans from the Osipa's chapter 6 "Mouth Keys", 30 pages dedicated exclusively to the mouth shape with a total of 80 illustrations such as the two ones I post here and extensive textual discussion covering the the How, Why, Do and Don't, etc of mouth shapes. Of those 30 pages, he dedicates 4 of them to the "Smile / Wide" mouth shape alone, then he spends the next 3 pages for the "OO" shape, etc.

For example, for the Smile shape:
[attachmentid=22575]
Osipa shows that the smile shape have both a width, a height and a depth. I won't reproduce part of his explanation text but basically, the idea of the smile mouth shape is that it must follow the head bones contour. Muscles cannot be pulled away from the skeletal structure.. The fleshy strcture will always be pulled by sliding on the underlying skeletal structure. Osipa discuses this principle in a previous chapter to the one concerning the mouth keys. In the Mouth Keys chapters he just details the width, height and depth motions in the context of this skeletal morphology principle.

[attachmentid=22576]
This i basically the current Woot smile mouth shape. Osipa don't only shows what the animator or rigger should do. He also take the time to show what should not be done, common errors and how things can go wrong. For instance, he discusses when and how to use or not use the "Cartoon" smile.

And here are two scans from Faigin's chapter "Muscles of the mouth", 36 pages of drawings and textual descriptions of how the face muscles are affecting the mouth shape. While Osipa does care very little about the underlying muscles of the face and cares much more about the exterior appearance and how to encode that into key poses, Faigin book is all about anatomy, describing each facial musclles and how they affect the facial expressions. This can be very usefull when trying to understand the Whys of Osipa's diagrams.

Here are two illustrations Faigin's discussion of the Smile mouth shape:
[attachmentid=22577]
Faigin shows how the mouth is controled by the muscles. THis is just one muscle diagram that shows the combination of several,muscles. THe muscle that controls the Smile shape is mainly the Zygomatic Major, labeled "D" in this diagram. There is a special section called "Zygomatic Major: The Smiling Muscle" for the discussion of how the Zygomatic Major does indeed affects the Smile shape with 11 illustrations,including one with a rubber band that shows how the facial tussues must follow the contour of the head skeletal structure, in this case the mandibula.

[attachmentid=22578]
This is from another section called "Zygomatic Major: The open mouth smile", another 4 pages where Faigin shows the different planes of a smile.

OK, I'll be getting the book for Christmas. I'm curious how the Osipa rig allows the animator to make the mouth shape in the second image....a shape I can make with my mouth. But maybe no rig can do everything or my mouth is strange .

When I get back online, I'll make the change to woot first as a test and see how it looks with the current animation.

I don't think his rig allowed him to place the mouth in this shape. He probably hand tweaked it that way to make a point of what not to do.

Jason Osipa's book is a "must have", it should be recommended as much as "The Illusion of Life" and the "Animator's Survival Guide".

I only rigged the TinWoodsman and Tingirl faces...their poses should have a third dimension to them, the bones setup they use does it automatically. If they have a problem, let me know.