Morphy Deformation Rig Beta (maya 2009 version)!

First of all, thanks for the great feedback on the eye rig. There were some great thoughts there on how to make the rig even better. Much appreciated. On to the next...

So, this is the beta release for Morphy's facial deformation setup. Here's a quick guide...(if you prefer to just jump in without knowing what things are, skip to the disclaimer and download link at the end)

So, what do we have here?

• When you open the scene, go ahead and play the timeline. You'll see some quick deformation poses I set so you can get an idea of how things move. There are a series of controls surrounding the face that are being animated.
• Now, grab the temporary morph joystick and move it around. I made 4 quick morph targets (one of them especially quick but more on that in a sec) and connected them to the control  to make it easy to mess with initially. There is a blendShape node connected to the face that the joystick drives. The four points of the "compass" for the joystick are fat, feminine, SculptMe, and masculine if looking at it starting 'north' and going around the dial clockwise. See how they affect the various deformation poses throughout the timeline. The idea is that part of the customization process will be with the deformation controls and part of it will be via the blendShapes
• The eyebrows are simply connected via a wrap deformer (please note the polycount on them is quite low). I'm planning on using the same for other customization stuff as well but and open to ideas if you have them.
• Now to play...
• There's a quick select set called "qssFaceCustomize" that as all of facial deformation controls in it. I use zooTools set manager to work with Quick select sets and find it to be a very quick workflow. "d" is my hot key and I bring up the menu if I hold it and select my last set if I just hit it once. 
• Feel free to delete my poses or just add your own after them and see what you can come up with. Start moving them around, scaling them whatever.
• That SculptMe blendShape is for you to sculpt on without having to add it to the blendshape node though you can feel free to add your own as well on that front.You'll be able to see them if you turn on the layer "MorphTargets"
• If you want to play with asymmetric facial deformation, open up the expressions editor and comment out or delete my FaceCustomizerExpr and you can just grab those right side joints yourself and break the face to your heart's content.
• No, the facial rig isn't on this beta. Sorry still working on it:)
• Yes I know the lids aren't weighted yet on this version

This is the feedback/input I'm looking for on this beta test:

• Are there enough deformation controls for you? If you'd like more, where would you like them.
• Would you like some sort of interface to drive the morphs in the customization phase?
• Would you like precanned types like the quick pass I've done here or would you like it broken down to nose types, chins in a more area-centric fashion
• Are you happy with only deforming one side of the face and having it mirror across or would your prefer asymmetric deformation ability? 
• Do you want to have the morphability when you are animating or would you like a "freeze look" function that pulls out unnecessary nodes and what not for speed's sake?
• Please email feedback to me (see contact page) with a subject line of  "Making Morphy Moldable".

-Call for submissions - 

The final morphy rig will more than likely be limited on the the morphability side for free with a very low cost "honor system" fee for the full blown rig. I'm not 100% on that yet but am leaning that way as a way of justifying continued character making efforts (which I happen to enjoy quite a bit but doesn't exactly pay the bills). So...anyone providing an asset that makes the cut on rig inclusion will 1) get early access to the final rig, 2) get a credit in the release docs as well as the morphy page on my website with a link to your website and 3) not have to pay anything to get it as my way of saying thanks for taking the time to help this endeavor. What am I looking for?

• Very cool facial morphs - make a really cool nose, chin or something else I haven't even thought of
• Customization stuff - Now that you have the base head, you have the basis to make beards, mustaches, hair dos, new eyebrows, glasses, new ears, earrings, monocles or whatever you can think of.
• Textures - the face is fully UV'd. I'd like to have some different skin types for release. Sure I can paint them but 1) I'm not the best texture artist and 2) I'd rather be working on making the rig awesome. Also, if you don't like my uv layout, feel free to redo it and if it's better I'll substitute it
• Submissions should be sent to me (see contact page for email addy, don't forget to remove spaces) and a subject line of "Mophy shall be mine!" 

Should you wish to provide something, please make sure the poly count isn't crazy. Look at the ears and eyebrows for an idea of what may not be too much:)

Disclaimer - Without (much) further ado, here's the rig. I'm gonna ask you don't go take my head and use it for other purposes- especially not until I've released the final character and more specifically not commercial ones. However I can't do anything to stop you should you be inclined to do so other than not do these betas which means working in a vacuum which I find to suck. Yes, that was a pun. Yes, I know it's not as funny to point that out. No, I'm not a comedian. /scene

Here it is!