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facial capture as morph

thecyclethecycle Posts: 15
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

HI,

Does someone know if it is possible to capture an entire session of facial mocap and convert/record it as a single morph in DAZ?

Many thanks

Regards,

Comments

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hi Leonardo

    If you mean as a "pose" file (which you can use over and over on other similar characters), yes.. but only under certain circumstances.. for example, I've only been able to save poses from fbx files (which I'm assuming you will be using) when they are done on the bone facial rigging of daz genesis 3 characters.. morph facial animation from fbx won't save as a pose file.

     

  • thecyclethecycle Posts: 15

    Hi,

    I'm trying to export my anims to UE4. My intention is to synchronyze both facial and body animations, and if I can export and entire morph as a sequence, it would be easier. Maybe there are another options to get this...

     

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Ok.. I've tested bringing in an fbx file from motionbuilder with both facial and body mocap without any issues into ue4.. so in theory it shoud work with animations done in daz studio too..   if you export your file from daz studio to fbx, including the animations, it should open up in ue4.. it is a setting when you export.  You can email me at bryan at kkstudio dot us if you have any questions

     

  • thecyclethecycle Posts: 15

    Hi Bryan, and how did you manage to record both body and facial in sync?

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hi Leonardo

    I'm using Dynamixyz performer and Optitrack.. performer has a feature that it will accept signals from the optitrack system to capture at the same time.. which makes things a lot easier.. and they capture at the same framerate, so then in motionbuilder it makes it a snap to put them together.  I bring this mb file as is from mb into daz studio and save it as a pose.  Now, the facial only works since I'm using the bone rigging from genesis 3, unfortunately I haven't been able to get it to work using morphs

  • thecyclethecycle Posts: 15

    Facial rigging only possible with Genesis 3? I also have some characters created in Genesis 2...

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    As far as I can tell, the fbx importer/exporter for Daz Studio  has some quirks, when trying to save the animattion as a pose preset, it doesn't have the option to save the morph animation, only the bones, which is why I've only been able to get this to work with gen3 characters (as the facial rigging is bone based)

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hey Leo, I just discovered something..   apparently, if you use "shaping preset" to save your morph based animation.. it will save the pose file with all of the  animation applied (plus the body animation too)  I tested it with one character and it seems to work just fine.. so I'm going to test with some others and I'll let you know.

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    sorry, "shaping preset" only allows the morphs,  "properties preset" allows for the morphs and the body animation

  • thecyclethecycle Posts: 15

    I think I've done something similar in the past following some tutorial I can't find now :(. Maybe is what I'm searching. May you please brief the steps you follow here :)?

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    well, I did some more testing.. and found out that the shapintg and properties presets should work, but don't.. but I've discovered why, and it has to do with how the fbx exporter writes the names of character morphs. (I've only done this with Genesis3, but I'm expecting this to be the same with other characters)

    At the moment of export, daz studio writes the morphs like this:  Genesis3Male__eCTRLSurprised, __eCTRLNostrilsFlare, etc.   Motionbuilder accepts these and you can work with them however you want.    When you import the fbx back into Daz Studio, and save it as a shaping or properties preset.. it keeps the naming convention it used to write the morphs out.  Here's an example

    },
                {
                    "url" : "name://@selection#Genesis3Male__eCTRLSurprised:?value/value",
                    "keys" : [ [ 0, 0 ], [ 5.983333, 0 ], [ 10.43333, 0 ], [ 13.89167, 0 ], [ 20.55833, 0 ], [ 31.31667, 0 ], [ 35.29167, 0 ], [ 53.00833, 0 ], [ 56.50833, 0 ], [ 62.91667, 0 ], [ 100.075, 0 ], [ 111.85, 0 ], [ 113.9083, 0 ], [ 115.3167, 0 ], [ 129.8581, 0 ], [ 186.1333, 0 ], [ 226.65, 0 ], [ 233.6333, 0 ], [ 238.9417, 0 ] ]
                },
                {

    However, for it to work.. daz studio looks for   url" : "name://@selection#eCTRLSurprised:?value/value",   easy enough to open up in wordpad and do a mass replace, and it works well, but I wonder why it is set to name it that way in the first place.

    Just thought I would share..

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