With the rise of photogrammetry and digital humans, morph target animation is more relevant than ever. Technologies like FACS (Facial Action Coding System) rely heavily on blend shapes to translate human micro-expressions onto digital avatars in real-time.
Unlike skeletal animation, which uses a "bone" structure to move a mesh, morphing works by storing different versions of the same mesh and interpolating between them using "blending weights". How it Works Base Mesh: morph target animation new
Static normal maps for wrinkles look fake the moment a character moves. New pipelines blend in real-time, driven by muscle contraction values from an animation blueprint. As a character clenches their fist, a morph target displaces knuckle geometry and updates the normal map via a compute shader. Similarly, secondary motion (jiggle) can be baked into morph target sequences and triggered by acceleration changes, avoiding costly cloth/soft-body simulations for capes, hair, or belly physics. With the rise of photogrammetry and digital humans,
Here is everything you need to know about the new generation of morph target animation. How it Works Base Mesh: Static normal maps
Morph target animation (also called blendshape animation) is a technique for animating complex deformations by interpolating between predefined vertex-position shapes. Instead of driving deformation with skeletal rigs alone, artists create multiple target meshes (morph targets) that represent specific expressions or poses; the final animated mesh is computed by blending these targets with the base mesh.
While skeletal animation is the workhorse of character movement, morph targets are the secret sauce behind the most expressive and complex deformations in modern gaming and film. Let’s break down how they work and why they are essential.