Stretchy head setup

Hey all,
I am rigging a cartoon-like character (think SpongeBob),and I was wondering how to combine a squash and stretch setup on a head with blendshapes and facial controls. I have a regular stretchy setup on the head (arc length node going into MultDiv, then into scaleX of joints) and basic controls on the face. The character’s eyebrows, eyes, eyelid and mouth are all separate pieces of geometry. The problem I am having is getting the separate pieces of facial geometry to stretch with the rest of the head. Should all the geometry be in one skin cluster? I am using Maya. Any help is appreciated.

it all depends on your setup, for a head i would do the squash and stretch with a lattice as it can come last in the deformerstack, so i would go for that instead of using bones to squash and stretch if you are able to use them :slight_smile:

Thanx peerke88, I have thought about doing a lattice setup on the head, however when the head stretches, it doesn’t maintain volume. Do you know a way to get the head to scale inward when it stretches using a lattice?

You can look at using a non-linear deformer on the lattice.

that or skin the lattice to the squash and stretch joint or cluster the points and scale the cluster. lots ow ways to make the lattice behave the way you want

Thanx for the helpful replies. I’ll do a few experiments and let you how it goes.