NOTE: This package is a WIP. Use at your own risk.
The purpose of this package is to assist animators from animating expressions and talking by hand. This package includes two systems for animating character expressions. One for animiating the jaw and one for the eyes. This package contains behaviours, playables and utilities for controlling eye and jaw expressions.
Go to Window > Package Manager > The plus sign in the upper left > "Install Package from git URL" and paste:
https://github.com/DevEarley/CharacterExpressionUnityPackage.git
- Jaw IK rig builder.
Samples/Scripts/CharacterExpression_Jaw_IKRigBuilder.cs- Builds an IK rig with a transform override for you. This IK rig is required by the jaw animation scripts.
- Jaw Animation Behaviour.
Samples/Scripts/CharacterExpression_Jaw_Behaviour.cs - Jaw Animation Timeline Playable Clip, Mixer & Track
- Eyes Animation Behaviour.
Samples/Scripts/CharacterExpression_Eyes_Behaviour.cs - Blinking Animation Timeline Playable & Track
- Sample Character.
Samples/Character/Model_Anderson.fbx- Includes a few expressions and pupil colors.
You may use the Jaw IK Rig builder to quickly setup the rig needed for the jaw.
Attach the Jaw IK Rig Builder to the root of your character. Lock the inspector to the root GO. Locate the jaw bone in the character's rig. Assign the jaw to the IK Jaw Bone property in the inspector. Click the button to build the rig. The rig builder has done it's job and will remove it self once the rig has been built.
Attach a CharacterExpression_Jaw_Behaviour to the root of your character. Assign the Jaw_IK_Target to the property in the behaviour. The target is a child of the IK rig. Use the IK Rig Bui lder to set this up.
Choose a preset talking behaviour from the dropdown. This property can be animated from an animation clip or accessed by another behaviour.
Create a new timeline. Add a new track. Select Character Expressions > Jaw Playable Track. Drag the Jaw_IK_Target into the property input on the new track. Right click on this new track and select Create new Jaw Playable Clip. Select the new clip and choose the preset for that clip.
This package has 6 defined expressions: Neutral, Happy, Angry, Confused, Sad and Sleeping Your model will need to have UV mapped eyes for this system to work. This expression system is setup to work with the each eye mapped to the same position on the UV. Each expression requires 3 textures. A base map, an emissive texture, and a detail mask.
Each eye shape will require textures for each expression. Consider 10 eye shapes, times 5 eye expressions, times 3 textures is: 150 textures in your game just for character eyes. Carefully consider which textures are really necessary. Maybe not all characters show anger or sadness in your game. Also consider some emotions may look similar to others. Confused looks very similar to angry. Sad can be the same as sleeping.
The pupil color can be controlled using the detail map. You will need one texture per color. These textures can be a solid color or a gradient. You do not need to create multiple pupil textures for each eyeshape or expression.
This package supports any shader for the character's eyes. You will need to provide texture names to the Eye Textures Prefab (see below). Regardless of the shader you use, the shader will need an albedo map(aka base map or main texture), an emission texture and a detail mask. URP and Standard shaders have these textures.
This package's example character uses 4 frames of animation for blinking. The first frame is of the eye totally open. Second and third frames are partially open. The fouth frame is totally closed. Note: To create an expression like "sleeping" just make each frame totally closed.
Duplicate the base map and open it in your photo editor. Select the pupils. Create a new layer and fill it white. Fill the background black. Do this for each expression.
Duplicate the base map and open it in your photo editor of choice. Remove the saturation from the base map and increase the contrast so that whites of the eyes are against a black background. Do this for each expression.
The CharacterExpression_Eyes_Textures behaviour needs to be created for each eye shape.
Each shader uses different naming conventions for it's textures. To animate these, you need to provide the name to the CharacterExpression_Eyes_Textures Prefab. See table below.
| Shader | Type | Texture Map Name |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Unity Shader | Albedo | "_MainTex" |
| URP Lit | Albedo | "_BaseMap" |
| Standard Unity Shader | Emissive | "_EmissionMap" |
| URP Lit | Emissive | "_EmissionMap" |
| Standard Unity Shader | Detail | "_DetailMask" |
| URP Lit | Detail | "_DetailMask" |
3D model from the MHS project made by Carolyn Jarecki. Scripts by Alex Earley. Special Thanks to Charles Sielert, Carolyn Jarecki & Angela Jarecki.
The all of the code in this repo is released under Creative Commons Zero. The 3D model belongs to Adroit Studios.
⊕ Fix blending between playable clips.
⊕ Add more blinking presets.
⊕ Add more talking presets.
⊕ Create change log.
⊕ Add support for individual eye animations. Like looking right or left.
⊕ Support a variable amount of frames per eye.
⊕ Support a variable speed per blink.
⊕ Support custom blinking patterns.
⊕ Support "one-off" blinking. Signal? Public Function? Clip with "blink immediatley" preset.