Facial expressions via Texture Swapping?

[Ruki]

I'm working on a low-poly game and I was wondering how to go about making facial expressions/speaking animations on my models by swapping the texture and not by animating the 3d model.

 

The affect can be seen in the first bit of this animal crossing video:

 

How do I do this? In the most memory efficient way possible? Do I create a separate 3D model and attach it as a 'mask' on my body model and then change the texture it uses or something? I'm a bit confused! Thank you

[Rick]

I think one way would be to make the mouth part a separate surface on the model so it can have it's own material assigned to it in LE. Then you can use an atlas shader to change which part of the bigger overall texture to use. Each sub-part of the atlas texture could be a different mouth position as you see fit.

[Josh]

I would just apply a different material to that part of the model. I don't think memory usage will be a concern for this. You could also hide and show different head models depending on the current expression.

[Ruki]

I would just apply a different material to that part of the model.

 

How do you do that? I see a .SetMaterial() command which is fine, but assuming my character is made up of 1 model, how do I select just the head? I just tried splitting the head from the body in Blender and exporting that to Leadwerks, but it appears now as 2 separate models, how would I consolidate that into 1 model? Thank you!

[Rick]

You should be able to have separate surfaces (each surface has it's own material) with 1 model. I don't know how but I know you can do it.

[tournamentdan]

When you uv unwrap the model. You can create seams around where the mouth would go. Then in game with code switch out each texture of the desired mouth shape.