hi i was wondering if there was an tutorial about how to make an armature rigged face like ludwigs. that would be awsome if someone could help me out. shape keys are ok but i really liked working with the face armature and i want to do it for my character.
thanks
vince
If you purchase a copy of Introducing Character Animation in Blender, it’ll tell you how to do it the exact way that Ludwigs was done.
Also study the 2006 Blender Summer of Documentation Animation Guide, not as in depth, but its a start. Have a look at some of the other Rigs and try to understand them from a reverse engineer point of view, it helps to play around it. Good Luck! 
yeah i tried looking at it the ludwig rig in that way. it seems as if the rig is connected to shape keys or something. its confusing because the face and the body were not weight painted at all…i dont know maybe they are but i cant figure it out. i actually just started messing with a face armature by adding a nother armature and weight particular bones to different parts of the mouth and face. there is not nearly as much control as with the ludwig character but ill keep trying.
vince
The Ludwig rig uses ‘driven shape keys’. These are shape keys, that are controlled by the movement of bones. This tutorial explains how it’s done.
yeah i just figured that out…this tutorial is really helpfull… now all i have to do is apply this concept to my own character. thanks
vince
The reason why the body doesn’t have weight painting assigned to it is because it uses ‘armature envelopes’, basically if you select the armature and go to the Editing Panel (F9), move to the armature box and select ‘Envelope’ youll see the body of Ludwig being encased by the armature’s areas of influence like his arms, legs fingers, ribs and head. The Face is the only part of his body with vertex weight painting