Lip sealing / zipper approach

[Krzym]

Hi there,
Just wanted to as what’s your approach for lip zipper, was testing that last week and not sure which direction is production-proven.
Tried to recreate that one with some exceptions, but I’m not sure - seems overcomplicated and a bit slow.

Secondly, do you prefer to keep that as a local rig or connected to the main rig?

Second test I did was with animCU nodes, and it seems fast, but haven’t figured out how to calculate the base (closed) pose, when character have opened lips by default.

Any support much appreciated, time is not my ally this time.

All best,
K

[Krzym]

In addition I wanted to add some preview - so here’s my ugly test:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/mkckyrusht6g26m/bandicam 2020-12-04 14-25-06-755.mp4](https://www.dropbox.com/s/mkckyrusht6g26m/bandicam 2020-12-04 14-25-06-755.mp4)

Right now only the upper lip is connected and I placed locators as “neutral / zero” position parented to head / jaw joint.
Later I’ve calculated the distance between joints and connected it in relation to zipper.translateZ (using animCurveUU nodes)
So when Zipper_ctl is moving animCurves are controlling parent constraint between zero position and joint positon.

It’s simple but is working just fine when the lips are closed by default.
What I can’t figure out is how to blend joint position directly between zero position and zipper position ( transform connect to ctl or to curve in the middle? )

Later I’d like to add that transformation to mult matrix of lips rigger joint.
Did anyone test something similar using lips rigger as post script?