Hello!! I'm posting the video much later than I thought I would, sorry about that! But I hope you like it and the way things are turning out!
Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s3x2IPai5T-dc4lk7wQG_2wdAaOSJIoD/view?usp=drive_link
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TLDW:
For this update I've pretty much finished with the face and now moved onto the crotch, which already has pretty nice weights but there's still troublesome areas that need to be fixed.
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LONGER EXPLANATION:
The face:
-For the face I've now fixed the lower lips, which when "rolling out" [like pouting] where too thin!! They are now fuller-
-The "frown" and "smile" animations have been improved.
-I as already able to move the whole mouth UP, this animation has been adjusted a little bit. Also I have now added a "DOWN" animation, and I'm able to move the whole mouth down.
These two behave a bit different from each other, UP moves the center of the mouth up but leaves the corners in place.
DOWN moves the whole mouth down, including the corners.
-I can now move the lips "IN & OUT", in practice this has helped a lot to improve poses.
-When pulling the corners towards the center to make her mouth small, I previously had a pose that looked nice and provided good deformations with the other bones, but couldn't get small enough for "Uuu" sounds. I've kept that pose and added an extra pose that makes a much smaller mouth and works especially well when the mouth is open.
-I tried to make an animation so the whole moth could move "side to side", but I ended up scrapping it.
I am doing 2 versions for the crotch:
I have now moved towards working on the crotch, I've been doing weight painting and I think it might be close to finished, but still needs some things to fix.
-1st is simple, each bone controls an area, that's it. This is my "safe version" since things work pretty well already.
-2nd is a little more complex since the bones are connected. [You might remember I tried this before with the face but couldn't make it work well].
The deformation bones control an area each, and the controller bones connect the deformation bones and move two at a time. Because they have a "Stretch to" constraint, when you move the controllers, it feels and looks more squishy. That's why I'm trying out this other method, but again if it doesn't work, the first version is still there.