The Expression Editor in 3DXchange is mainly for including different settings of facial expressions in a non-standard character. When you use any facial-expression-related features in iClone, these settings can then be retrieved to create unique character facial animations.
The mapping between the Expression Editor and the facial-expression-related Panels
in iClone is shown below:
For basic facial animation, mapping the Head, Eyes, and Jaw is very necessary. You may switch to the corresponding tabs and define the minimum and maximum transform and rotation values for the bones that you have picked. Please refer to the sections below for more information:
The language-independent lip-sync function can be defined in the Viseme section to map all necessary mouth shapes. You are able to not only set the transformation values for the lip bones, but also the strength of your viseme blend shapes as well. After these values have been set, your character will have its own unique set of mouth talking shapes, otherwise known as visemes. Please refer to the section below for more information:
In iClone, Face Muscles are used as an abstract layer to blend subtle expressions. This makes it possible for all types of facial rig designs to be compatible with the iClone puppet control, and share the same talking script formats. After defining the muscle states, no matter by bone or morph, you can use all the profiles in the Facial Puppeteering Panel or Face Key Editor to create vivid facial performances in iClone. Please refer to the section below for more information:
The powerful Custom section allows you to freely designate unique facial behaviors by transforming bones and setting blend shape values. Simply map your custom facial postures to the mouse movement directions, and you will be able to puppet the custom movement using the character-specific 3DX_Custom profile in the iClone Puppeteering Panel. If the original character animation in iClone doesn't satisfy you, you can always create deform effects in Custom. Please refer to the section below for more information: