Facial animation workflow question

[aialexander]

Hey guys.

I've been trying for weeks now to figure out how to get facial animation to work using the help of MakeHuman and Blender. I want to retarget facial tracking information to the facial bones in the default preset of the latest nightly build of MakeHuman. The problem is, I can't seem to get any of those facial skeletal rigs into Blender. I've tried MHX2 and FBX both binary and ASCII exports and neither have made it into Blender yet without complications. The only thing I haven't tried is COLLADA but I understand that method is a bit of a hack that probably won't work forever. I was wondering if there was anyone out there who has found a way to do this and still be able to import the result into Unreal Engine 4. I understand that a lot of the functionality with some of these features aren't yet finished, but if there is a way I can get this to work, I would greatly appreciate any advice or assistance on the subject. Thanks!

[duststorm]

As far as I know, most export formats such as FBX ascii, collada and perhaps mhx allow you to export rigs to blender.
The facial rig works in my tests, just keep in mind that without a controller rig its quite difficult to use it. This part is not ready yet.

[brkurt]

Hey guys.

I've been trying for weeks now to figure out how to get facial animation to work using the help of MakeHuman and Blender. I want to retarget facial tracking information to the facial bones in the default preset of the latest nightly build of MakeHuman. The problem is, I can't seem to get any of those facial skeletal rigs into Blender. I've tried MHX2 and FBX both binary and ASCII exports and neither have made it into Blender yet without complications. The only thing I haven't tried is COLLADA but I understand that method is a bit of a hack that probably won't work forever. I was wondering if there was anyone out there who has found a way to do this and still be able to import the result into Unreal Engine 4. I understand that a lot of the functionality with some of these features aren't yet finished, but if there is a way I can get this to work, I would greatly appreciate any advice or assistance on the subject. Thanks!

A good place to start would be to download the newest (tomorrow Feb 15) unstable version of MH 1.1 and then export into Blender 2.73a using Collada.

If you explain exactly what you want your facial rig to do, it will be easier to help you. For example, do you want both emotions and lip sync?

[aialexander]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm shooting for, but I also need a solution that will be integratable into Unreal Engine 4. I'm using a trial version of a facial tracking software that allows me to record facial blenshape data over time and export them to Blender as markers which are then translated by FBX into bones. I'd like to be able to take that information and retarget it to a rig imported from Makehuman that has a facial skeletal system

[aialexander]

As far as I know, most export formats such as FBX ascii, collada and perhaps mhx allow you to export rigs to blender.
The facial rig works in my tests, just keep in mind that without a controller rig its quite difficult to use it. This part is not ready yet.

Thank you, I will keep this in mind when testing in the future. I'm not sure if there is simply a file type disagreement that blender is having and I just haven't found the perfect cocktail of export settings yet from MakeHuman, but so far my efforts have failed. Also, whenever I have attempted to import an ascii fbx from MakeHuman to Blender, I get an error saying that Blender doesn't support ascii files.

[duststorm]

I'm using a trial version of a facial tracking software that allows me to record facial blenshape data over time and export them to Blender as markers which are then translated by FBX into bones. I'd like to be able to take that information and retarget it to a rig imported from Makehuman that has a facial skeletal system

That looks a bit like an experiment I ran some time ago: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/makehuman ... ender.html

Which software are you using exactly? I'd like to integrate these pipelines in future releases of MH.

[aialexander]

I'm using Faceshift for facial tracking.

[aialexander]

I'm using a trial version of a facial tracking software that allows me to record facial blenshape data over time and export them to Blender as markers which are then translated by FBX into bones. I'd like to be able to take that information and retarget it to a rig imported from Makehuman that has a facial skeletal system

That looks a bit like an experiment I ran some time ago: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/makehuman ... ender.html

Which software are you using exactly? I'd like to integrate these pipelines in future releases of MH.

That video looks awesome! Is there a way for me to go about doing what you did using the tools that are available right now?

[duststorm]

That video looks awesome! Is there a way for me to go about doing what you did using the tools that are available right now?

You'd need the expression pose units, which were not finished and not released yet. We still need to see how and if we can incorporate this into the release as the GUI interaction and export for them is not yet finished.
Then I made a blender script that is an update of the script published by the referenced article. I was planning on cleaning that up and make it easy to use, but that hasn't happened yet.

[devrich]

That video looks awesome! Is there a way for me to go about doing what you did using the tools that are available right now?

You'd need the expression pose units, which were not finished and not released yet. We still need to see how and if we can incorporate this into the release as the GUI interaction and export for them is not yet finished.
Then I made a blender script that is an update of the script published by the referenced article. I was planning on cleaning that up and make it easy to use, but that hasn't happened yet.

I now have a excellent reason to fork out $1,500 for faceshift

Do you think this compatibility feature will make it to the MH 1.1 nightlies sometime soon? ( i reallly reallly hope so )