Blender Tutorial - Shape Key Basics

hello my name is Eve I'm a 3D artist in illustrator and in this blender tutorial I'll show you how you can use shape keys to bring your characters to life shape Keys also known as morph targets or blend shapes are a feature in blender that allow you to deform a 3D model by defining a series of Target shapes these shapes can represent different states of the model such as facial expressions most commonly shaped keys are used for facial animation or for correcting areas where your model doesn't deform well once it's rigged so those are called corrective shape keys okay now let's get into it before we start making the shape Keys just make sure that a few settings are turned on in blender go to edit preferences key map then enable tab for pi menu as well as extra shading Pie menu items from here after that click here and save preferences this will allow us to enter the different editing modes quickly by just pressing tab okay all set now let me show you how to make shape case in blender to start using shape Keys you need to have a 3D model this could be something you've modeled yourself or a pre-existing object that you want to modify in my case I'm using this character that I created in my 3D course if you're interested in learning how to model the specific character you can find my course on patreon udemy and skillshare additionally the finished character 3D model is also available on my patreon okay so what I'll show you in this tutorial is how to make a blink for one of the eyes once you have your model you can start creating shape keys to do that select the object you want to make a shape key for in this case this is the head of the character here I've separated the head as its own object after you have the object selected click on this icon to go into object data properties go to shape Keys here click on the plus icon next to shape keys to add a new shape Key by default this creates a basis shape key the basis is the initial state of the object it's just the original unedited position of the model in this case the neutral facial expression to add an additional shape key just click on the plus button here again that creates our first actual shape key so the basis needs to remain untouched and then you work on audio additional shape Keys double click on the second shape key and name it name it l toplet down so that is L for left top lid come coming down make sure you name your shape keys so you know what each one does we'll do a separate shape key for the bottom lid coming up having them as separate Keys gives you more control over how the blink animates once you've added your basis key and your first shape key it's time to actually modify the first shape key ensure you have the first shape key selected set the value from here to 1. after that press Tab and go into sculpt mode or edit mode personally I prefer to use scoped mode for adjusting the general shape and edit mode for fine tuning a switch between both modes by pressing tab okay let's adjust the shape of the top lid now press Tab and go into sculpt mode select the grab brush from here after that press F to adjust the size of the brush bring the top eyelid down like this make sure that your brush is small enough so it doesn't affect the bottom eyelid [Music] also try to work from the front inside view to make sure that everything looks nice from all angles [Music] here you want to make sure that you're only adjusting the top lid and not affecting the bottom one [Music] nice now our first shape key is all done press Tab and go back into object mode when you drag the value slider between 0 and 1 here you can see that the shape key animates the eyelid here are dolls careful not to grab the bottom lid you can see that the shape key actually still affects it and a bit of the side of the head here this sometimes happens if you grab areas by accident I'll show you how you can easily fix that now to fix it we need to make a new vertex group and assign only the vertices for the top lid in it then afterwards we'll assign this vertex group to the shape key which ensures that the shape key only affects those vertices to add a new vertex group click on the plus sign here name it by double clicking on it name it l toppling so you can recognize it after that press Tab and go into edit mode press 1 for vertices selection and select all the vertices for the top lid here you can enable x-ray from this button so you can select vertices on the back of the model as well also make sure to select the vertices on the inside of the eye as well [Music] you can turn off x-ray from the same button with all of the top lid vertices selected and the new vertex group highlighted click on assign here that assigns the vertices to the group after that press Tab and go into object mode select the top lid shape and then from the vertex group here select the new vertex group we just made that ensures that the shape key only affects the vertices in that group now when you drag the value from 0 to 1 you can see that the side of the head and the bottom lid are no longer affected nice that's our first shape key I'll sorted out next let's add another shape key for the bottom lid and repeat the same steps press on the plus sign to add a new shape key name your shape key [Music] set the shape key value to 1. after that press Tab and go into sculpt mode using the grab brush lift the bottom lid so it goes up [Music] here I want to show you how you can use edit mode as well to make the shape key press Tab and go into edit mode I like to use the proportional editing tool to make shape keys press this button here to enable proportional editing you also want to click here and choose connected only that will only move the edges that are attached to the ones you have selected proportional editing allows you to move things with a smooth falloff around the selected area now press 2 for Edge selection select one of the edges on the eyelash and then shift select one of the edges on the face now when you press G to move the edges up you can see that you have a smooth fall off around the selected edges here you can scroll up or down on your mouse to increase or decrease the area the proportional editing effects I scroll up on mine and then I move the bottom eyelid shape with G I make sure to move it out as well so it curves nicely around the eyeball [Music] at any point while working on your shape Keys you can press Tab and go into object mode to preview how both shaped keys look together set the value of both the shape keys to one from the value slider in order to do that you can then press Tab and go back into sculpt mode and continue making any necessary adjustments [Music] here you can actually see that the top lid shape key is affecting the bottom lashes which is not what we want that's happened because I've accidentally grabbed some of the vertices for the bottom lash and assigned them to the top lash group you can easily fix that though to do that first select the top lid vertex group here then press Tab and go into edit mode press 1 for vertices selection shift select the vertices that you don't want to be affected then click on remove here that removes the vertices from the group now when you press Tab and go into object mode when you turn the top shape key on it no longer drags the bottom lashes with it this is very handy to know when you're making multiple blend shapes and you only want a certain area to be affected so it's very useful to know in case you make a mistake after this I continue adjusting both shape keys so they look nice together I adjust them in sculpt mode [Music] I create another vertex group for the bottom lid just like we did before to create the bottom lid vertex group click on the plus sign to add a new vertex group double click to name it press Tab and go into edit mode press 1 for vertices selection and select the vertices for the bottom left lid select the left eye lash as well don't forget to select the vertices inside of the eye as well we follow the vertices selected click assign here to add them to the new vertex group after that press Tab and go into object mode select the bottom lid shape key and from vertex group assign the new vertex group we just made this will ensure that the shape key only affects the bottom lid nice now our second shape key is also done now the two shape Keys work together to make a nice blink now you're ready to animate your shape Keys you can do that two ways the first way is to add keyframes directly to your shape key values and animate those on the timeline that's the most straightforward way to do it the second way is to add drivers that drive your shape keys typically this is the most common approach for animating shape keys in this tutorial I'll show you how to quickly add keyframes directly on the shape key values on my patreon you can find an extended version of this tutorial where I show you more advanced shape key techniques such as adding drivers in this tutorial I'll only show you the simple way okay so ensure that the base mesh is selected and then go into timeline here move the time slider in the timeline to frame 1. then set the values of both shape keys to zero with the bottom lid shape key selected hover your mouse over the value slider and press I to insert a keyframe after this select the top lid shape key hover over the value slider and press I to insert a keyframe now both shape Keys values are set to 0 on frame 1 of our timeline now move the animation slider to frame 20. in the shape case set the value slider to 1. hover over the value slider and press I to insert a keyframe after that set the value of the bottom lid shape key to one as well hover over the value slider and press I to keyframe now both of our shape case values are set to 1 on frame 20. nice now when you scroll new timeline you can see that we have an animated blink and that is how you animate shape Keys directly that is all the basics that you need to know to get started with shape keys if you want to learn more advanced shape key techniques like how to make drivers and how to make animation pose presets make sure to check out my patreon there I have a more in-depth version of this tutorial where I show you shape keys in more detail here I also want to give a huge shout out to all my patrons thanks to you I can continue making these tutorials and more I really really appreciate your support and I'm so grateful that you choose to be part of my little corner of the internet if you enjoy my work you can support me by becoming a patron I post exclusive tutorials over there as well as behind the scenes of my animation project the magical adventures of Gizmo and Oz the link will be in the description if you want to join and that is everything for this video if you have any questions about the basics of shape Keys feel free to leave me a comment and I'll do my best to help thank you for watching thank you for being here and I'll see you in the next one bye

Channel: Eve Sculpts

Views: 19,908

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Id: 7WGtmADZCzU

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 24 2023