Newest research and talks on character rigging, deformation, CFX, facial capture, retargeting and motion synthesis.https://enriquevelasco.com/https://gdcvault.com/play/1035647/Automatic-Wrapping-of-Facial-Expressionhttps://gdcvault.com/play/1035647/Automatic-Wrapping-of-Facial-ExpressionPresents a fully automated pipeline for wrapping and cleaning up dozens of FACS expression scans using WrapAI to build silver-level likeness rigs in minutes.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTfacialskinninghttps://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35052https://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35052Covers updates to Weta's muscle-driven APFS facial system and Bodyopt full-body skin-deformation network for performance-captured Avatar characters.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTfacialmusclesretargetinghttps://studios.disneyresearch.com/2026/04/04/canrig-cross-attention-neural-face-rigging-with-variable-local-control/https://studios.disneyresearch.com/2026/04/04/canrig-cross-attention-neural-face-rigging-with-variable-local-control/Cross-attention neural network for face rigging enabling variable local control over expression and pose for production face pipelines.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTfacialriggingml-deformationhttps://gdcvault.com/play/1035652/Freedom-Through-Structure-Character-Pipelineshttps://gdcvault.com/play/1035652/Freedom-Through-Structure-Character-PipelinesEmbark Studios outlines their Houdini and USD-based procedural character pipeline shared across Arc Raiders and The Finals, balancing manual and automated rigging workflows.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinninghttps://schedule.gdconf.com/session/high-fidelity-on-pc-and-mobile-the-delta-force-character-production-pipeline-presented-by-tencent-games/917920https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/high-fidelity-on-pc-and-mobile-the-delta-force-character-production-pipeline-presented-by-tencent-games/917920Details Team Jade's cross-platform character art pipeline for Delta Force, covering asset workflows that deliver AAA fidelity on both PC and mobile targets.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTskinningrigginghttps://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35821https://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35821Examines how Pixar's Hoppers unified modeling, animation, simulation, and lighting to achieve felted cloth characters with physical realism and stylized appeal.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTcfxskinninghttps://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35017https://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35017Animation director at Illogic Studios demonstrates feature-quality rigging and cross-department animation workflow for a commercial wolf character at production scale.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinninghttps://schedule.gdconf.com/search/Physics-Based%20Enemy%20Locomotion%20ARC%20Raidershttps://schedule.gdconf.com/search/Physics-Based%20Enemy%20Locomotion%20ARC%20RaidersDescribes a reinforcement-learning locomotion controller that trains robot enemies to self-discover terrain-adaptive walking and combat movement in physics simulation.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesishttps://schedule.gdconf.com/search/Lightspeed%20Mocap%20LAhttps://schedule.gdconf.com/search/Lightspeed%20Mocap%20LACovers building a Vicon Valkyrie-based performance capture facility with custom file-management APIs to support complex multi-actor stunt and dialogue capture pipelines.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTretargetingfacialhttps://nvlabs.github.io/motionbrickshttps://nvlabs.github.io/motionbricksMotionBricks is a real-time generative motion framework: a modular latent backbone models over 350,000 clips in one network and a smart-primitive interface authors navigation and object interaction plug-and-play, reaching 15,000 FPS at 2ms latency and deployed zero-shot to a Unitree G1 humanoid.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesisretargetinghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16858https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16858SOMA introduces a canonical body topology and universal rig, reducing cross-model adapter complexity from O(M^2) to O(M) via inverse-LBS pose solving and FK optimization.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTretargetingskinningrigginghttps://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35141https://fmx.de/en/program/program-2026/detail/event/35141Lead Creatures TD Jono Dysart details creature development pipelines for Vecna and the Mind Flayer across 1,185 VFX shots, including skin, muscle, and cloth systems.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTmusclescfxskinninghttps://schedule.gdconf.com/session/the-hidden-ones-real-time-ai-generation-of-kung-fu-motions-presented-by-tencent-games-ai/917893https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/the-hidden-ones-real-time-ai-generation-of-kung-fu-motions-presented-by-tencent-games-ai/917893Introduces a markerless mocap capture pipeline paired with a dedicated generation model for real-time fluid Kung Fu transition synthesis in a fighting game.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesisretargetinghttps://schedule.gdconf.com/search/VISVISE%20Tencenthttps://schedule.gdconf.com/search/VISVISE%20TencentPresents VISVISE's full-stack pipeline covering 3D structural sketch generation, auto-retopology, auto-rigging, high-precision auto-skinning, and motion in-betweening.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinningmotion-synthesishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iKVMyTHpZ4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iKVMyTHpZ4Autodesk University 2025 live demo by CEO Andrew Anagnost and Product Manager Lance Thornton showing Maya's MotionMaker locomotion synthesis, FaceAnimator, and additional AI-driven character animation tools.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesisfacialhttps://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70052https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.700522D generative prior guides joint placement and skinning weight prediction for diverse skeleton and mesh configurations.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinninghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15767https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15767Parametric body model trained on 600k scans that grounds the mesh in an explicit skeletal basis, decoupling bone length and shape from soft-tissue deformation for independent anatomical control.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTmusclesml-deformationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1GsYOG5914https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1GsYOG5914Framestore Houdini Connect breakdown of crafting Appa's realistic fur groom and Momo's creature design for Netflix's live-action Avatar, plus storm and water FX.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvaHoIbVCeghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvaHoIbVCegMaya Learning Channel tutorial by rigging expert Matthew Tucker introducing the Bifrost Modular Rigging Framework, covering modules, pins, and transforms for building procedural node-based animation rigs.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihm6rXotZPohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihm6rXotZPoCovers the Bifrost rigging module interface in Maya, explaining input and output types, parent-child relationships, and how modules interact with Maya scenes for reusable rig components.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEE3v0o9jQghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEE3v0o9jQgWalks through building and publishing a custom spline rig module inside the Bifrost Modular Rigging Framework, demonstrating how to author reusable procedural rig components for character pipelines.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2501.07800https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.07800Three-stage pipeline combining multi-query mesh recovery, neural inverse kinematics, and 2D-informed refinement to produce biomechanically plausible human poses from monocular video.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTretargetingmuscleshttps://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70068https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70068BlendSim shifts physics-based animation from discrete frame-by-frame solves to continuous interpolation trajectories built on blendshapes, representing each vertex path with continuous parametric BeziWed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacialcfxhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=UdtM9yD5pLIhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=UdtM9yD5pLIIntroduces the Otis GPU-accelerated dynamics solver in Houdini 21, delivering FEM-quality muscle, fascia, and fat simulation at interactive speeds for character FX pipelines.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTmusclescfxskinninghttps://youtube.com/watch?v=IzmJnTnphBchttps://youtube.com/watch?v=IzmJnTnphBcArtist-focused guide to Chaos Cloth simulation in Unreal Engine, building a production-ready pipeline for both real-time and cinematic cloth sequences.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxskinninghttps://youtube.com/watch?v=1ty5-RlBlVQhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=1ty5-RlBlVQTechnical presentation on integrating Chaos Cloth into AAA game production pipelines, covering simulation fidelity, performance budgets, and artist-facing tooling.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxskinninghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734105https://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734105Multi-tiered strategy for choreographing Moana 2 hair and cloth motion using performance categorization, visual planning, and iterative refinement.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744628https://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744628Foundry introduces the UsdSuperLayer node in Katana, providing a procedural on-demand approach that prevents full stage recomposition when editing large character and shading graphs.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734074https://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734074Blends 3D target shapes into 2D fabric panels via custom UVs to retarget cloth simulations toward artist-directed draping looks, used in Inside Out 2 and Elio.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://www.gdcvault.com/play/1035519/Dressed-to-Quest-Achieving-Dynamichttps://www.gdcvault.com/play/1035519/Dressed-to-Quest-Achieving-DynamicWarhorse Studios presents character systems for KCD2 reducing memory, CPU, and draw calls via material atlasing, ID mapping, UV decals, and layered armor with blood, grime, and damage states.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxskinninghttps://youtube.com/watch?v=FLDXtAV7qswhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=FLDXtAV7qswPractical advice on incrementally adopting Motion Matching in existing animation state-machine projects, demonstrating responsive pose selection with minimal data overhead.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesisretargetinghttps://youtube.com/watch?v=tZkQHiZ25kghttps://youtube.com/watch?v=tZkQHiZ25kgProject Outback phase two: contrasts realistic versus stylized facial rig construction in KineFX, demonstrating multiple facial rigging techniques and their APEX implementation.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacialrigginghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IP8FXbPmeEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IP8FXbPmeEQuick-start guide showing how to use MotionMaker in Maya 2026.1 to transform simple motion paths into smooth, lifelike character locomotion cycles for bipeds and quadrupeds.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesishttps://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03589https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03589Anny is a scan-free open-source parametric body model using anthropometric phenotype parameters: gender, age, height, weight, calibrated from WHO population statistics.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinningretargetinghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02317https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02317Introduces the first large-scale humanoid rigging dataset of 11,434 T-posed meshes and a transformer-based framework fusing skeleton priors with 3D mesh features for automatic rigging.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTriggingml-deformationhttps://doi.org/10.1145/3747860https://doi.org/10.1145/3747860Layers real-time thin-shell simulation and contact onto an existing facial rig, with no anatomical priors or extra artist work, adding plausible skin dynamics and self-contact that run interactively on consumer hardware.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacialcfxhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi99rpGzbrghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi99rpGzbrgFramestore Head of Groom and Creature FX presents a full creature FX pipeline from muscle simulation through tissue and skin to fur coat dynamics in KineFX.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eUUVcMD1hghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eUUVcMD1hgIntroduces MotionMaker, Maya 2026.1's AI-driven locomotion synthesis tool that generates biped and quadruped motion from a few keyframes or a guide path, trained on dedicated mocap datasets.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTmotion-synthesisretargetinghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734079https://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734079Mesh-free character rig for Elio's implicit-surface liquid supercomputer, giving animators full fidelity control over a rigged shader while preserving renderability.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15586https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15586Meta's MHR combines a decoupled skeleton/shape paradigm with a modern rig and pose-corrective system, culminating 9 years of anatomically inspired body model work.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinningretargetinghttps://doi.org/10.2312/egs.20251036https://doi.org/10.2312/egs.20251036Neural method for transferring facial deformations across characters, generalizing expression retargeting to unseen identities and rig topologies.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacialretargetingml-deformationhttps://doi.org/10.1145/3730930https://doi.org/10.1145/3730930Large autoregressive transformer generates skeletons and skinning weights for diverse 3D asset categories in a single unified framework.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinningml-deformationhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=Jq_NLwdm_8Uhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=Jq_NLwdm_8UExplores the rigging framework built for Project Outback inside KineFX and APEX, covering customized rig workflows and future animation techniques under investigation.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTriggingskinninghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744625https://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744625Lightweight pseudo-collision method preventing fur-skin intersection without full simulation, enabling scalable creature grooming at production scale.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=uiXa-T8q5-shttps://youtube.com/watch?v=uiXa-T8q5-sUnder-the-hood look at MetaHuman Animator's latest real-time facial capture capabilities and the updated Live Link pipeline for on-set performance transfer.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacialretargetinghttps://isshikihugh.github.io/HSMR/https://isshikihugh.github.io/HSMR/HSMR: first end-to-end image-to-SKEL regressor, jointly recovering the biomechanically accurate skeleton and body mesh from a single photograph.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTskinningmusclesretargetinghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12362https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12362This paper introduces a rest shape optimization framework that produces sag-free simulations of discrete elastic rods under gravity.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18601https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18601A triangulation-agnostic surface network deforms neutral facial meshes into industry-standard FACS poses, using 2D supervision on unlabeled meshes to scale beyond scarce professional-rigged data.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacialrigginghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744627https://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744627DreamWorks rig system for stylized rubber-hose limb animation, enabling exaggerated cartoon deformation on production characters.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744626https://doi.org/10.1145/3744199.3744626Procedural rigging framework using a direct graph-based control model enabling flexible, maintainable character rig construction.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTrigginghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734080https://doi.org/10.1145/3721239.3734080Stabilizes cloth and hair collisions in impossible upstream animation configurations without modifying the original animation, integrated into Weta's Loki framework.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=381Bveq2vakhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=381Bveq2vakUntold Studios CFX Supervisor and Head of VFX explain Houdini solutions for simulating octopus tentacles, skin, and hair in Disney's 2024 holiday short, covering challenging creature CFX.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=-8CQNaODNNAhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=-8CQNaODNNAOverview of UE5.6 IK Retargeter enhancements and the roadmap for animation retargeting, covering the journey from IK Rig setup to fully automated skeleton mapping.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTretargetingrigginghttps://arxiv.org/abs/2404.19398https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.19398Represents a neutral head and expression basis shapes as 3D Gaussians learned from monocular video, enabling real-time blendshape-style face animation with high-frequency detail.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTfacialml-deformationhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2312.09228https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.09228Learns non-rigid deformation of 3D Gaussians driven by a skeleton with isometric regularization, achieving real-time 50+ FPS rendering and training in 30 minutes from monocular video.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTskinningml-deformationhttps://doi.org/10.1002/cav.70001https://doi.org/10.1002/cav.70001Anatomy-based pipeline translates mocap markers to FACS muscle activations with explicit passive-muscle modeling for diverse character faces.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTfacialretargetinghttps://doi.org/10.1145/3641233.3664332https://doi.org/10.1145/3641233.3664332Grooming and moving feathers at DreamWorks had been a technically complicated and specialized process, and the feathered characters of Kung Fu Panda 4 and The Wild Robot prompted a re-imaginMon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://doi.org/10.1145/3658135https://doi.org/10.1145/3658135Neural network approximates full musculoskeletal FEM skin deformation at interactive rates, trained on biomechanically accurate simulation data.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTmusclesml-deformationskinninghttps://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.15235https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.15235This work proposes a practical surface-based appearance model for pennaceous feathers, representing far-field appearance with a BSDF that implicitly captures light scattering from the main bMon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTcfxhttps://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr52733.2024.00216https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr52733.2024.00216Implicit face model constrained by anatomical priors, improving 3D face fitting generalization across diverse identities and expressions.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTfacial