Solo Head Rig: Update

At last, I have finally got back to the solo head rig! This rig is primarily just aimed for me to use as a "practice" head rig, so I could experience a lot of trial-and-error, and decide which techniques work best for the rig, and which ones do not. This was my first attempt at an advanced facial rig, so I did encounter more than a handful of mistakes. Below I have posted a video of how I went about creating the joints on the face so that the joints will also follow along with the blend shapes that were created for the model (excuse the mistake I made of constraining the control icon to the locator, instead of the control icons offset group! I corrected myself afterwards). I only demonstrated one joint placement because as you can see, it takes some time. I am thinking about creating a script for this process so that it will be much quicker and easier for me on future facial rigs (I will keep you updated on this script). 

As you can see, the blend shapes are driven by icons in front of the face. As I said before, this has been a real learning experience for me so, now I realize now that I should create a GUI system on the side of the face so that it does not create so much clutter in front of the face. Also, I will create much more visible control icons that move the joints around so that it is much easier for the animator. I plan to create a visibility swap for these controls within the GUI system so they have the option to hide them or not.

I learned this technique from the Jeremy Ernst method: (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1600901/jeremy_ernst_fastandefficietfacialrigging.pdf).
The geometry that the blend shapes were created from is what I call the "cage" of the face. Its just a duplicate (or low poly model of the face, if available to you) of the mesh in which the blend shapes were created, and the rivets, locators, joint, and joint controller are all placed upon. Once all of that is created, you will then bind the joint to the Original mesh (the actual character mesh that you are using). This process helps avoid double constraints and allows for the joints to follow along for the ride with the blend shapes. Thank you for your time and interest in my work, and I am excited to learn even more about creating facial rigs through different techniques!