Blender 3D: Characters, Machines, and Scenes for Artists

Assigning drivers to the shape keys

In the previous recipe, we created three different types of shape keys. Besides the fixing shape keys, that have a fixed value (no pun intended), we now need a way to set the amount of influence of the other two types of shape keys, facial expressions, and the muscle movements during the animation. This is accomplished by setting drivers, though with different kinds of controls.

Getting ready

Start from the previously saved Gidiosaurus_shapekeys.blend file:

1. Go to the Outliner and hide the Armor object.
2. Select the Armature rig, switch to the Octahedral bones draw mode, and press Tab to enter Edit Mode; zoom to the character head and add six bones located as follows: two bones close to both the right and the left ...