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3D Facial Rigging in 3ds Max 2026: Beginner's Guide (Udemy.com)

Master Facial Bone Systems, Wiring, and Morph Targets. Create Expressive 3D Characters for Animation and Video Games.

Created by: Anass Cherkaoui

Last updated July 2026

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What you will learn

  • How to build a facial skeleton with a dual jaw bones to get more flexibilty.
  • How to skin your model and use the skin modifier's features to improve the deformations.
  • How to build a fleshy eye rig to simulate sliding around the eyelids.
  • How to build animation controls.
  • How to connect animation controls with bone objects using constraints.
  • How to use inverse kinematics as an alternative way to control the eyes.
  • How to create custom parameters.
  • How to drive the tongue using wire parameters.
  • How to use the skin wrap modifier to attach the hair, eyebrows and eyelashes to the Head deformations.
  • How to create awesome looking facial expressions.

How it compares

Against the other 545 rated Udemy courses in 3D Modeling on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.7 out of 5higher than 75% of them
  • Reviews149#368 of 546 by number of reviews
  • Length4.5 hoursshorter than 61% of them
  • Last updatedJuly 2026more recently than 94% of them

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Course Description

Welcome to the BEST & ULTIMATE Guide you'll ever find on 3D Facial Rigging for Beginners in 2026!

(( Side Note: Everything taught in this course is applicable to all 3ds Max versions ))


Give your 3D characters a soul. Master the art of professional Facial Rigging in 3ds Max.

Have you ever finished a beautiful 3D character model, only for it to look "dead" or "robotic" because it can't smile, blink, or speak? Facial rigging is the most critical skill for any character artist, but it is often the most intimidating.

This course changes that. Designed for absolute beginners, this project-based masterclass takes you step-by-step through the process of building a high-performance facial rig from scratch. We skip the over-complicated math and focus on the production-ready workflows used by professional studios to create expressive, believable characters.

What You Will Master:

  • The Anatomy of an Expression: Understanding how the face moves to create realistic smiles, frowns, and blinks.

  • Bone-Based Facial Systems: How to place and hierarchy bones for maximum control.

  • The Morpher Modifier: Mastering "Shape Keys" to create perfect facial deforms that bones can't achieve alone.

  • Lip-Sync Fundamentals: Setting up Phonemes and Visemes so your character is ready for dialogue.

  • Eye & Lid Controls: Building automated "look-at" constraints and natural blinking systems.

  • The Reaction Manager: Learning to automate complex movements so your animator saves hours of work.

Why This Course Is Different:

  • Beginner-Friendly: No prior rigging experience? No problem. We start with the basics of the 3ds Max interface.

  • Workflow Focused: I don’t just show you "which button to click"—I teach you the logic so you can rig any character face, whether it's a cartoon human or a realistic creature.

  • High-Velocity Learning: As a curriculum developer, I’ve structured these lessons to be fast, engaging, and free of fluff.

Who Is This For?

  • 3D Modeling Students who want to see their characters come to life.

  • Aspiring Animators who want to understand the "under the hood" mechanics of their rigs.

  • Game Developers needing efficient, optimized facial setups for Unreal Engine or Unity.

Stop settling for static faces. Enroll today and start building characters that truly communicate.

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Instructor Details

Anass Cherkaoui

Hi there, my name is Anass Cherkaoui, I'm a Udemy instructor and I'm a passionate about 3D, Graphic Design as well as programming and web development.

I remember what it was like to start from zero, self-teach myself and struggle day and night to acquire the skills needed to build my own career. And this what pushes me to decide teaching on Udemy.

With Udemy, I can actually share my knowledge and experience I've gained past several years and help as many people as I can learn how to be 3D artists.

I will teach you in a simple and entertaining way. To me, learning should be easy to comprehend no matter what skill level you're at, and you should have fun doing it.

If you like to learn things quickly and thoroughly and like to have loads of fun on the way, then with my enthusiasm and energy throughout the lessons of my course, I'm sure you'll have a blast in your journey and be able to build a solid career that you'll be very proud of.

I look forward to being your friend first, then your instructor and mentor second, and look to help you and respond to all your questions in a timely manner.

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Reviews

4.7

149 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Sumit Athanere on 6/9/2023

This is very good tutorial, I can learn basics here so that I can understand how plugins and addons work. Amazing I am here to create my own rig because of frustration of others rigging tools are not as my expectation. So, now I want to create my own rig )

By Lars Andreasen on 10/27/2022

Firstly this series of tutorials is really teaching me a lot. The instructions are clear, easy to understand and the pace is really good. A lot of tutorials 'speedtalks' through a ton of stuff and makes it hard to follow along, so a slow pace is really, well.. awesome ;-) There is off course room for improvement, and a lot is left uncovered that could be really benificial. In particular to this lesson, the Mirror Paste would be a good idea to cover. I had a lot of errors when mirroring and I had to do most of both sides of the head seperately and mach it by eye. So having to mirror the entire head is a very bad move in my case, and being able to selectively mirror selected vertices saved me a lot of trouble.

By Isabella Sierra on 4/15/2021

The course is great but it is also advanced so you should be aware. Also, it seems to be the second part of the "Whole body rigging process" course and the teacher refers to the first course a lot. I didn't do the first one and sometimes I couldn't understand something because he believed we had already done the first one. Nonetheless I think this course was a great purchase, learned a lot!

By Alexander Guillén on 10/24/2019

this was a good course, i just have troubles with one part, "setting the fleshy eye sistem" but the rest i made it well, thanks so much for this knowledge! i will make good thinks with it :D

By Shaun Hager on 11/9/2018

I knew a lot about 3ds max already and have used it for a very long time. So I wasn't expecting to learn as much as I did. This course helped open my mind to new and efficient techniques of rigging and facial animation I haven't thought of, and taught me helpful shortcuts and strategies to make my animating life easier.

By Jason White on 11/5/2018

It's excellent. To further improve it, I would recommend editing the video to remove a few of the speech pauses so it seems smoother. Very easy to understand - details about why things are done in a certain way is very useful to understanding why it is important and makes it easier to remember. I also enjoy the enthusiastic attitude of the instructor. I will recommend this to others as it teaches practical and professional skills for rigging.

By Wassim chakir on 6/9/2018

First of all, Thank you, Anass! It was fun learning about Facial Rigging. Your explanations were easy to understand and the exercises provided with the course did help me to understand more about the concepts. I would recommend this course to students who are seeking to learn Facial Rigging, and 3D rigging in general.

By Pedro Nijiar on 6/9/2018

Great instructor! Provides an enjoyable learning experience while explaining content in great detail, yet does not overwhelm you with information.

By Tyler Mauni on 6/8/2018

A really good course for Beginners. The concepts are explained very clearly and it is easy to follow along . The instructor is responsive to Questions and I would definitely recommend this course to anyone interested in learning Facial Rigging. Thanks.

By Celaria Anna on 6/8/2018

Thank you Anass, you are best at what you do - sharing knowledge! This course helped me become more comfortable creating my own Facial Rigs. I highly recommend it. Thanks again Anass

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Overall Score : 94 / 100