Blendshape Tool

Public Sources for Ubisoft’s FaceBuilder

• Using ML and complex math to deconstruct and reconstruct human faces
  (Ubisoft La Forge R&D article)

• Far Cry 3: digital survivors
  (CG QUEST blog post detailing the FaceBuilder plugin in the Far Cry 3 pipeline)

Artists were spending hours manually adding, mirroring, naming and integrating custom blendshapes into the FaceBuilder rig—switching between tools, enforcing BGE2 conventions, and previewing corrections was error-prone and slowed production.

Developed a Maya tool in Python that communicates directly with the FaceBuilder FBR rig: it automates blendshape mirroring and corrective generation, enforces BGE2 naming conventions, lets artists activate/deactivate shapes, extract and reintegrate them for offline editing, and provides a grid-based layout for quick visual iteration.

Cut per-character custom blendshape setup time by over 70% (from roughly 4 hours down to under 1 hour), significantly reducing manual errors and freeing artists to focus on creative polish.