Combo-texture mapping

This method is similar to the texture mapping, except it supports a different set of texture options. Where texture mapping supports each viseme shape being applied to the mouth of the character, combo-textures support the following options:

• Mouth open and closed (no visemes)
• Eyes open and closed (blinking!)
• Four facial expressions (happy, sad, surprised, and angry)

Note that the two can be combined together to achieve more complex texture-based animations. For example, you could apply the regular texture mapping to the mouth to achieve more detailed viseme-based mouth movement, and use combo-textures to add blinking eyes and facial expressions.

Steps

1. Open your character's Unity scene and select the character in the Hierarchy pane.

2. In the Inspector pane, change the Expression Type setting to Combo Textures.

3. Scroll down in the Inspector pane and click Add Component then add a Facial Expression Reference component. Combo textures will be added to this component instead of via the main Avatar Model References component.

4. On the Facial Expression Reference component, change the Expression Type to Combo Textures.

You'll see a list of available texture options on the Facial Expression Reference component. If you want to include blinking texture variants, click the Use blinking textures checkbox which will unhide those texture settings as well.

5. Drag each of your textures into the Project pane, then select them all.

6. In the Inspector pane, change the following settings then click Apply:

• Click Alpha is Transparency
• For Wrap Mode choose Clamp

7. Drag each of your facial expression textures into the appropriate setting found in step 4.

Texture mapping tips

• Texture sizes that are square and sized in multiples of 2 (e.g., 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048) work more optimally in the VR engine.

Next: Animation mapping