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[davdud101]

I'm currently working on some facial structures for my characters, and I'm looking for suggestions - is it better to use morphs or a rigged face for facial motion?

[cooldude234]

depends on the how you want it to be set up and what you are doing with it.
I usually have eye's setup with bones and for facial expressions I use morphs on the eyebrows, cheeks, lips etc.

[johnar]

 Most, if not all, facial animation can be done with morphs.
 Eyes can be rigged if you'd rather, for looking up, down and sideways.
 

 If you decide to use a rig for the eyes, then using sequences for their movement can be a time saver, but morphing eyes can be a quicker and easier way to actually animate them in the scene.

   Somethings that can be worthwhile rigging are eyes, tongue and chin, but all can usually be done with morphs, which at the end of the day are quicker to animate in scene mode with the help of the graph editor.
 

[ENSONIQ5]

The main difference between rigging and morphing is that rigging provides rotational movement where morphing provides linear movement.  So any movement that's based on skeletal motion should probably be rigged (jaw) along with the eyes and eyelids (since they slide over an orb), whereas muscular movement (facial expressions, ie. cheeks, lips etc.) could most likely be handled predominantly with morphs.  This would be true of a model that was fairly lifelike, maybe not so critical with cartoonish figures.  I suspect the most convincing animations would involve a combination of both.

[johnar]

I suspect the most convincing animations would involve a combination of both.

Second that..
 But speaking of linear, (morphs), and rotational, (bones), i realise this to be true, BUT, morphs can be used ,with caution, for rotational purposes, tho more limited in the amount of possible rotation.
 I've done a 3 part tut on building and animating eyes using morphs.  They can work, but you do need to take special care with axis points being centered, and can easily add too much 'turn', which can really screw up after only about a 30 -45 degree rotation.
 At the end of the day, i do prefer using a rig for eyes, but depends on situation. Sometimes morphed eyes are easier to work with during animation.
 Re eyelids: Opening and closing eyes,/blinking,  i've always used morphs for this, but then, my characters are far from realistic.....

[ENSONIQ5]

That's it I think, it all really depends on the model and what it's to be used for.  You're absolutely right johnar, clever use of morphs can totally be the right way to go, particularly where 'structural integrity' is not so important, such as for a cartoon-like model.  Cartoons often don't really have skulls... the morphability of their heads and features is often where a lot of the humour of a character stems.