Out of Milk - Shape Key for Breathing

Greetings SizeCitizens, SizeSerfs and SizePeasants!

One thing that I was missing in the toolset for animating people is breathing. Blinking, facial expressions and lip syncing are all very useful, but breathing can really help elevate a shot and make a character feel much more human.

Sadly, there isn't anything built into the conversion and rigging toolkit I currently use, so I built one myself. It's a shapekey in blender, controlled by a specific bone in the rig, that I linked using driers, and then I copy the shapekey across to any clothing that the character wears so that it's all controlled by the same thing.

It took me a second to figure out how to properly link them up, but I'm pleased with how this looks! I think when combined with mocap and facial animation, it should help make shots look that extra bit more immersive!

Thanks,

SizeKing.