Introduction to Blend Shapes

We were introduced to creating Blend shapes and their possible uses with a simple exercise in Maya. This involved duplicating a simple shape, adjusting them and adding blend shapes. I was surprised at how simple this process was and could see how it could be used to create more dynamic animation.

Though I'm not using Maya to create my Alien I can see how using blend shapes would be extremely useful for facial animation, allowing a range of expressions to be exaggerated and given an interesting design, freeing the face from restrictions of solely using a rig and adding some character to it.