facial expressions

Animation Tips For Smiles

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Nailing the right “smiling eye” look in your characters can be challenging – unless you know how the orbicularis oculi muscle works.

All About Upper Lid Raiser – AU5

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In FACS, upper lid raiser, or AU5, is the action that raises and retracts the upper eyelid; this movement causes the eyes to appear wider and reveal more sclera (the white part of eye). The appearance changes we see in upper lid raiser are the result of an increase in contraction of levator palpebrae superioris, an extraocular muscle that works to keep the upper eyelid elevated.

Nasolabial Furrow Deepener vs. Upper Lip Raiser

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Because of its name, upper lip raiser is considered the go-to action for lifting the top lip and tends to get overused in art and tech, acting as a replacement for nasolabial furrow deepener or a shortcut for showing teeth during smiling. Despite its name, upper lip raiser is not the only lip-raising action! In fact, applying upper lip raiser to contexts better suited for nasolabial furrow deepener can be detrimental to the essence of a target expression.

Faces You Don’t Want to See During UX Research – Especially For VR

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Faces of discomfort often followed headset adjustment – or predicted upcoming adjustments. Bored faces and faces on the contempt spectrum tended to be predictive of undesirable experiences later disclosed during the post-demo interviews. These expressions were not just useful for predicting events. They also served as points for further investigation.

Killer Smiles: A Fine Line Between Creepy and Beautiful

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From observing trends in art, social media, ranking systems, and pop culture, there appear to be two main types of “creepy smiles”: Type I, which I coined The Grinch Pinch and Type 2, which I coined The Muted Shark. Types I and II typically contain all or many of the following features:

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