Please note: The BCS is distributed by STARGRAV GmbH.
On the official product page
you can request a download link.
You can also contact me via email if you're interested in trying it out or have further
questions or feedback.
Here are two little deformation tests showing a bit of my current mouth setup using the BCS and
the
ACS
together. The participating AUs are 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, and 27.
What is BCS?
For those of you who didn't already guess what BCS is, let me give you a short
explanation:
BCS stands for BlendShape
Combination System and is a
system that allows you to deform geometry objects like with a blendShape node.
It was specifically designed for high-end facial setups. There are some major
improvements on the blendShape node:
With the BCS, you can place deformation knots (called dataPoints)
anywhere in the n-dimensional weight space. In plain English, this means
that you can have 30 to 60 sliders controlling 900+ blendShapes to get the
full range of facial expressions and all needed combinations... ;)
You can create real inbetweens with smooth transitions from one shape
to the next.
The left and right part of a target can be created automatically,
using editable falloffs.
The total deformation can be painted (similar to painting
clusters).
Here's a screen shot of the UI. Click on the image to see all the sections
expanded.
Many of the combination shapes can be created very quickly using the
paintability of the BCS together with tweakMixing and some other
tricks. Moreover, the work is almost halved since you don't need to worry
about left and right sides. The nice mirroring tools and automatic
left-right separation (with automatically created unilateral
combinations) do most of this work.
The current BCS version contains builds for the following Maya versions:
Maya 2023
Maya 2024
Maya 2025
Windows
v1.4.9
v1.4.9
v1.4.9
Mac (universal)
v1.4.9
v1.4.9
v1.4.9
Linux
v1.4.9
v1.4.9
v1.4.9
Please contact me if you need builds for older Maya versions.
Version History
1.4.9
Add support for Maya 2025
Drop support for Maya 2022
1.4.8
Fix "Transfer BCS Setup" not scriptable in Maya batch mode
1.4.7
Fix rare crash when deleting data points or using the Mirror Geometry
tool while Maya is in 'parallel' evaluation mode.
Add support for Maya 2024
Drop support for Maya 2020
1.4.6
Add support for Maya 2023
Drop support for Maya 2019
1.4.5
Fix missed falloff update in cached playback when a falloff is animated
while a DP geometry is animated as well.
1.4.4
Fix crash when bilateral DPs have no falloff set
1.4.3
Add support for Maya 2022
Drop support for Maya 2018
1.4.2
Fix cached playback not working with animated BCS node
Significantly speed up animated falloffs (applies to relative data
points with no connected geometry and no unilateral tweaks)
Fix missed DP updates when input geometry changes
1.4.1
Add support for Maya 2020
Drop support for Maya 2017
1.4.0
New experimental feature: Dynamically color deformed geometry to show DP deformation per
vertex, current per-vertex DP count, or total deformation. Show UI controls using
"View -> Show Coloring Feature".
Builds for Maya 2019
1.3.3
Convert the BCS into a Maya module for easier installation and updating
Compatibility with Maya 2018
1.3.2
Fix: "Reset Data Points" not working correctly
Show if DPs have deltas in the "Data Point Info" section
Added '-he/-hasEdits' and '-tol/-tolerance' flags to the DPK_bcs command
Small GUI fixes
Compatibility with Maya 2017
1.3.1
Compatibility with Maya 2016 Extension 2
New menu item to create a new dataPoint using existing geometry
New menu item to disconnect geometry from dataPoints without deleting
the geometry
1.3.0
Fix: Rare crash when moving a DP to a different position in weight space
Added new "Display Smoothness" smoothing method to ToggleView tool
Additions to MEL utilities in DPK_bcs_utils.mel (for scripting setup
creation/management)
1.3.0-beta1
The deformation algorithm is now multithreaded
Performance improvements even in single threaded mode
New: Transfer a BCS setup to different geometry
Fix: Missed node updates in Maya 2016 'Parallel' evaluation mode
Fix: Warning when creating DP geometry for deformed NURBS curves
Fix: Creating DP geometry after some input objects have been deleted in
multi-shape setups failed
Fix: Missed node update when DP geometry was deleted while geometry was
connected
1.2.1
Compatibility with Maya 2016
Fix: 'Bake Topology to BCS' did not handle locked attrs correctly
Fix: (PaintDeform + RotateDeltas) Corrected links to online help
1.2.0
New: Added 'Bake Topology to BCS' function to "Extras" menu
New: DataPoint Snapshot images in GUI
Fix: References sometimes producing errors upon loading
Change: Prevent editing of referenced BCS setups (GUI-only, command still
allows editing (at own risk))
Scripting: More flag combinations for '-dpw' (e.g. with '-wsp1',
'-side', ...)
Scripting: Flag combinations for '-gw/-gdp/-gfo' with '-called'
Scripting: Flag combination '-q -gwv -name -bi (1|0)'
Fix: Deleting an instance does not completely delete its data (new DPs
sometimes inherited the old data)
Change: Creating instances now uses the same weight-selection logic as
creating other dataPoints
Scripting: Internal node-updates are issued much more often when using
the 'DPK_bcs' command, making most of the 'DPK_bcs -edit -update' calls
unnecessary.
Fix: Crash when creating a new BCS node with at least one dataPoint in
non-GUI session
Small enhancements
Docs: added "How the System Works" and "FAQs" and made a few changes in
other chapters, so that the "old-docs" could be removed from the package
1.1.11
Fix: Turning Freeze Input off sometimes caused other deformer nodes in Maya to slow down,
even after reloading the scene. Only restarting Maya solved the slow down.
Fix: The BCS node did not initialize correctly when loading a scene with a hidden BCS
setup of NURBS objects.
1.1.10
Fix: Moving dataPoints to new positions sometimes resulted in undefined behavior
Fix (ToogleView): Negative translations resulted in syntax error
Docs: Small fixes
1.1.9
Compatibility fixes for the new Maya 2011 Qt-GUI on Windows and Linux
You can now select the font to use for the lists (useful if the default
font is too small in your localisation)
1.1.8
Solved a UI bug where the BCS GUI didn't open under certain
circumstances
Solved wrong handling of relative unilateral tweak geometry
Ensure weight names do not start with a number
1.1.7
Loading the BCS plugin after sourcing the DPK_bcsUI.mel script resulted in unstable
behavior of the GUI (e.g. "Error while parsing arguments.")
1.1.6
Referencing a scene with a BCS setup several times into another now works
correctly
1.1.5
New Features:
New interpolation method "Inverse Arc" for creating arc-type movement
with positions on both sides of a weight's zero value (e.g. on -1 and 1)
Other:
Huge speed up of list updates in Linux (now similar to Windows version)
In MirrorGeometry, warn the user in case the object to be mirrored is
specified as symmetrical object
Bug Fixes:
When deleting dataPoints, influenced absolute DPs weren't updated
Undoing dataPoint deletion sometimes didn't restore deformation data of
bilateral dataPoints
Undoing a "Reset Data" didn't trigger an update of restored
dataPoint data, making it seem the undo wasn't successful
Fixed a small bug in "Reposition DPGs"
1.1.4
Some changes for x64 compatibility
Added "ToggleView Setup..." to bcsUI menus
Solved a few tiny UI bugs
1.1.3
Creating dataPoint geometry now works even in complex situations where the output geometry
is used several times in the scene (e.g. in a "Toggle View" setup and at the same
time for a "Mesh->Combine")
The expand/collapse state of weights in the list is now preserved when they are reordered
Neutral ("free", neither "edit" nor "view") geometry is now
created correctly for multi-shape setups (only accessible through the DPK_bcs MEL command,
but may influence TweakMixing of multi shape objects)
1.1.2
Fixed the dataPoint deletion issue. Deleting dataPoints should now be stable even with
extensive use of undo/redo and big deletion operations.
1.1.1
The "Falloff Settings" area now updates its controls more reliably
The bcsUI's lists now have the "view" popup menus on CTRL+right-click instead of
middle-click for Linux compatibility
Tweaked UI code of the following scripts to work better on Linux:
DPK_bcsUI
DPK_mirrorGeoUI.mel
DPK_paintDeform.mel
DPK_toggleViewSetup.mel
The Attribute Editor template for the BCS node now works on Linux too
Fixed error in ToggleView scriptNode on Linux
Non-unique object names don't produce an error anymore in DPK_paintDeform.mel and
DPK_rotateDeltasUI.mel
A few small bug fixes and enhancements
1.1.0
New Features:
New script for adding several hotkey commands to the Hotkey Editor:
"DPK_registerHotkeys.mel"
New script for creating "Toggle View" and "Toggle Smoothing" setups:
"DPK_toggleViewSetup.mel"
New "PaintDeform Marking Menu" for the "Paint Deform" tool
Added menu item "Add to PaintDeform Marking Menu" to "Data Points" menu
and popup menu for quickly adding dataPoints to the "PaintDeform Marking Menu"
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a small bug in paintDeform where errors occurred when the painted object's name
wasn't unique in the scene
Solved a problem where the falloff editor was drawn incorrectly in Maya 8.5
Other:
Updated online help menu items
1.0.9
Added deformation order option to "Create BCS Options" dialogue
Solved a possible memory leak
Solved a bug that could unpredictably crash Maya in different situations
Several changes in the way the command handles undo/redo, which should make it much more
stable
Solved a bug where instances of the neutral shape were unstable under certain
circumstances
Solved a few tiny UI bugs
1.0.8
Many thanks to Louis Vottero for providing a compiled plugin version:
Win: Maya 8.0
Many thanks to Tieum, Phid and the people at Mac Guff for providing compiled plugin
versions:
Linux: Maya 6.0.1 (works on Suse 9 and should on Redhat)
Linux: Maya 7.0 (works on Suse 9 and should on Redhat)
Win: Maya 6.0
Win: Maya 7.0
API:
NURBS objects are now mirrored correctly
Fixed a bug that slowed down other deformers (e.g. cluster) no matter whether the a bcs
node was in the scene or not. Now, none of the other deformers is affected by the bcs.
Note that this fix doesn't work in Maya 5.
C++ code revised so that it compiles on linux too
UI:
All user interfaces (bcs, mirrorGeo, rotateDeltas, paintDeform) should now be displayed
correctly on linux
Other:
RotateDeltas now remembers the rotation axis vector correctly
1.0.7
API:
NONE - Please note that the plugin is still version 1.0.6, so no
recompiling is required. The changes are just in the mel scripts.
Other:
Thanks to the help of Zach Gray, there's now a plugin for windows Maya 7.0
UI:
Added functions "Select Related DPs" and "Select Included DPs" (instead of
"Select Data Points") to the middle-click weightList menu
When more than one dataPoint is selected, the total number of selected dataPoints is shown
in "Data Point Info"
1.0.6
API:
DataPoints now need about 17 times less RAM
Reduced size of saved Maya scene file for bilateral dataPoints
In Maya 6.5 and above, warning and error messages of the API commands now contain the line
numbers
Minor error checking fix in the DPK_mirrorGeo command
Other:
Fixed a bug that occurred when an unpositioned dataPoint was added to the tweakMix
using the "Add Selected DataPoints" button
1.0.5
API:
Fixed a bug where connections were lost or API errors occurred when changing
weight configurations while some weights had outgoing connections
Fixed the alias name bug in the actual C++ code (the fix for 1.0.4 was a MEL
workaround)
Fixed the bug in "Move DPGs to Selected WPGs" in the actual C++ code
Added '-weightValueName' query flag to the DPK_bcs command. This is required for
the new DPK_animUI script.
Fixed a bug that sometimes lead to infinite calls of a certain function and
slowed down Maya
1.0.4
API:
NONE - Please note that the plugin is still version 1.0.2, so no
recompiling is required. The changes are just in the mel scripts.
Other:
Weight names should now be preserved even when user defined attrs are added to the bcs
node.
1.0.3
API:
NONE - Please note that the plugin is still version 1.0.2, so no
recompiling is required. The changes are just in the mel scripts.
UI:
Added options to show/hide the four panes
Added a Marking Menu below the panes for the different pane configurations
Added menu item "Online Help" to the Help menu
Other:
Enhanced the tweakMix window with options for adding objects and dataPoints to the
mix. Also, the position of a dataPoint is now shown in the popup help of the slider's
label.
Added a new modeling tool "Paint Deform" (see manual)
Added a new modeling tool "Rotate Deltas" (see manual)
Added the item "Rebuild DataPoint Name" to the Data Points menu (see manual)
"Data Point Info" now shows the rounded position under "Pos:"
The separation string is now used for the info in "Data Point Info"
Fixed a bug where all wps of a weight were indirectly selected even when just a wpg of
this weight was selected. Now, only the wps of the selected wpg are considered to be
selected indirectly.
Fixed a tiny bug where the tweakMix sliders had wrong ranges in some cases
Fixed a bug in "Move DPGs to Selected WPGs"
Changes in the docs:
Added the "Quick Start"
Added docs for "Paint Deform" and "Rotate Deltas"
Other minor corrections and additions
1.0.2
Thanks to the help of Judd Simantov, there's now a plugin for windows Maya 6.0
Added plugin compiled for Maya 6.5 (windows)
Source changed slightly to be compatible with Maya 6.5
Batch files added to compile for Maya 6.0 and 6.5 (windows)
1.0.1
Source made a little more ISO C++ compliant
Added .bat file (with readme) for compiling with C++ Toolkit 2003
