Facial Expression Tutorial

This is exactly what it says.  For those of you who would like to make your Sim smile, you have come to the right place.  

If you know how to pose using milkshape then continue, if not go here .  Kate explains how to do create poses.  This is how I learned.

Ok since we know how to pose, we are going to skip all of the fancy stuff and go right into milkshape:

So now that we have opened up milkshape, let's choose a male:  

Now that we have our man, we are going to do a few things first.  Under file click preferences, you can choose to leave it like it is now, or you can change it.  If you have followed Kate's tutorial then you know what I am talking about.  If not then go read her tut.  For this tutorial I will change it like Kate taught me to.  So I went from this:

To This: 

 
Now that we have established this, let's get to work.  Always make sure you hit the anim button.

I often forget and then I have to start over.  Anyway let's make our models closer, you will be using two.  The Top left and the bottom right:

There are lots of facial expressions, but for this tutorial let's make this man smile.  So before we hit move, let's rotate the eyelids ( you will use upper right box for this and nothing else, but I don't zoom on this.  You can if you want.)  :

Ok so now that we have our eyelids rotated, let's rotate our jaw to show some teeth (you can use b_jaw or b_jawcomp it doesn't matter which):

 Like this:

Now we get to do the fun stuff.  Go back to the model tab and hit the move button (you can also use this to stretch the skeleton to make taller or shorter sims):

Go back under the joints tab and scroll up from jaw until you reach b_RightSquint.  No one on this Earth smiles without moving one muscle on there face, so should be true for Sims, move it to whatever position you feel comfortable with. (You will be using the upper left corner for this.) Notice I have moved it to just under the right lower eyelid:

After you have done this with the left, let's move the cheeks.  Scroll down until you see b_rightcheek doing the samething with the cheeks.  Move them to what YOU feel comfortable with.

For me it varies for each of my Sims.  I have a Sim named Jonny who doesn't smile ear to ear, so I won't move his cheeks as much.  But If you have read my story then you know Scott smiles from ear to ear, so let's do that: 

Now scroll down to b_UpLip.  We are going to move this slightly:    

If you have a very touchy mouse and a pre-teen daughter who bounces everytime she  comes into the livingroom, this is what it will look like:

Since she is not around at the moment, we will continue.  Move the right upper lip and left upper lip as you see fit.  I try to show some teeth, Scott smiles very toothy.  So this is what it will look like: 

Ok Now we are going to move the corners of the mouth.  Scroll down until you see b_Rightmouth and move it, do the same for the left mouth:

Again your preference, Because I am making a Scott smile, this is what I get:

  

That's it.  If you want to move the tongue you can.  You can even move the lower mouth too.  I have been doing this for several months, because I can not stand taking screenshots with Sims, that have no facial expressions.  

I do recommend figuring out what your Sims face will be before you start to pose him/her/it.  Only because you will have to rotate it to see the face.

That should be it, if you have any questions, as always leave me a comment.  Thanks for looking.
Next Tutorial how to get my singer/performer to sing/perform without a stage.