Quote - ..Are expressions definitely character-dependant as they seem? Is there a common pathway? Some characters seem to change expressions better than others (like in real life, anyway). What are your experiences with expressions?Giorgio

Expressions are just morphs to the mesh.  You are correct in that they look better for the character they were designed for.  They do!  That's because they were designed for that mesh.

When you have a face morph, it's a different looking mesh.  However, it still moves according to the instructions in the expression morph.

Let's say that vertice #345.32324.55443 is supposed to move upwards .4534325 units in a "smile" expression on Victoria 4.  Well, the new face morph has that particular vertice located .983732 units from its default position.  But, it will still move .4534324 units when the "smile" expression is chosen.  That doesn't work very well if that particular vertice is making up a portion of the nose of the new face morph instead of the mouth.  (of course, if V4 uses muscle and expression groups assigned on the fly dicated by new morph meshes that I am not aware of.. then, I'm completely wrong..)

IMO, the only way to really get a good expression morph is to tweak the settings by hand and, in some cases, directly manipulate the mesh.  I also think that more face morph creators should include specialized morph dials for expressions.  For instance, Aery Soul's Alice comes with a set of expressions specifically built for Alice since she is a radically different looking mesh morph than V4's standard appearance.  This is the way it should be for some generic expression morphs in custom characers.  I don't expect character creators to redo every expression.  But, some very basic starting point morphs (like smile, frown, etc) should be included if using standard V4 expression morphs won't yield appropriate results with the new character.