Project Storm – Facial Rigging and Modeling Progress Update

With the official announcement of Project Storm, we've begun refining the brow setup to provide full flexibility while keeping the control structure clean and intuitive. This process involved several iterations, testing different configurations to find the most effective solution.

Julien has finalized both the design and expression sculpts. The expression sculpts are valuable references for understanding skin deformation across a range of facial expressions, while staying aligned with Vivien’s expression drawings. With just a few minor tweaks left on the design sculpt, we are ready to move into the modeling phase, which will include retopology and UV mapping.

Additional deformation systems have also been tested, including global squash and stretch for the upper and lower face, as well as local deformation bones to fine-tune eyelid shapes. The final setup will combine shapekeys, deformation bones, and lattice deformers. All control bones will follow the mesh deformations accurately, thanks to upcoming improvements to the Override Transform functionality. This will allow animators to maintain a clear and consistent overlay of control bones, regardless of how the mesh is deformed.