Can this be done?

It is done, but it requires a lot of extra work. In XSI we've occasionally set the jaw up as its own joint for "focus" figures, because it allows a range of motion that surpasses what's available through direct morfing. Equally, since most models stress the jaw-line already, the work required to figure out control falloff (are these present in Poser's rigging?) is minimal.

The downside is that you have to plan all of your morfs more carefully throughout the process, as a side-to-side jaw movement may result in a morf deforming badly. This is something to watch for with all cross-joint morfs, but particularly with the jaw, as the deformations of the lips are so closely tied to the movement of the bone underneath.

Additionally, a model that has a rigged jaw is much harder to customize. That's not a problem for high-end users who design and build their own figures for each use, but Poser users might get ticked if they found out that it took 4 hours to alter Vicky's facial structure to achieve the result they wanted.

Can we implement this in future models?

Depends on what "we" you're referring to.

DAZ might be able to do it, I'm not sure. There models tend not to focus on animation set-ups and rigging, so I'm skeptical about whether or not they could implement that change in a way that their customers would find beneficial. (In other words, doing it right might get them more sales, but doing it wrong would get them a lot fewer sales).

The other reason why not to do it is that it makes third-party development much more difficult and time consuming in some ways. Would merchants who make facial morf packs and characters be willing to jump through the big hoops that would be necessary?

Can we implement this in existing models?

I'm sure a lot of people in this community can, but they probably will find out very quickly why they shouldn't. Adding a bone to a pre-existing, pre-rigged mesh is an extremely time-consuming procedure. Adding the bones and the joints are actually the easy part.

The hard part is when you discover that you have to recast the entire figure's facial geometry to accomodate the new joint set-up.

If you really want this sort of thing in a figure, I highly suggest you pop into the big topology threads over at CGTalk and get a full view of the pros and cons, as well as what you'd be up against and what people have tried and had success with or failed with in the past. ;) (Note: These are just my thoughts, but please consider them as constructive. I am not a modeling goddess (yet), although I do have a lot of experience setting up and rigging in XSI, and understand most of the principles involved in mesh construction, even if I'm not yet good enough to implement them) Message edited on: 11/17/2004 01:10