Origin

Specifies whether the blend shape will be relative to the base object shape’s position, rotation, and scale. Click Local or World. The default is Local.

Local

Local will blend the base object shape to the target object shape(s) while ignoring differences in position, rotation, and scale between the base object and the target object(s). For facial animation setup, you would typically want to select Local. In general, Local is useful when you want to have your target object(s) in various separate positions for easy viewing but don’t want their positions to affect the deformation.

World

World will blend the base object shape to the target object shape(s), taking into account any differences in position, rotation, and scale between the target object shape(s).

Target Shape Options

Select from the following:

In-Between

Specifies whether the blending will be in series or in parallel.

If on, the blending will be in series. Shape transitions will occur in the order in which you selected the target shape(s). The effect will be that the blend shape will be able to change from the first target object shape, to the second, and so on, back and forth through the series of target object shapes chained together as “in-between” shapes.

If off, the blending will occur in parallel. Each target object shape can influence the blending simultaneously in a parallel fashion rather than one after another in a series. Typically, for facial animation setup, you want In-Between off so that you can have a variety of basic facial expressions that form the basis of all the possible expressions. Because the blending is in parallel, you can control the influence of each basic expression at any moment to get a nearly infinite variety of highly nuanced expressions. Default is off.

Check Topology

Specifies whether to check if the base shape and the target shape(s) have the same topology. For example, if using NURBS objects, you could check if all the shapes have the same number of CVs. Click on or off. Default is on.

Delete Targets

Specifies whether to delete the target shape(s) after creation. Deleting target shapes can be useful if you don’t need to see or manipulate the target shape(s) and you want to improve display performance. However, be sure to save a copy of the target shapes in case you later decide you need to adjust them. Default is off.

Deformation order

Specifies the placement of the deformer node in the deformable object’s history.

Default

Typically places the deformer immediately before the current final shape node.

Before

Places the deformer immediately before the current final shape node. Default and Before typically provide the same placement.

After

Places the deformer immediately after the current final shape node, and creates a new final shape node.

Split

Splits the input deformation history into two separate deformation chains, providing two final shapes originating from the same deformable object.

Parallel

Creates a final shape that blends the object’s current input history in parallel with the new deformer.