What Figure's FACE is the most EXPRESSIVE?
Fauvist
Posts: 2,052
in The Commons
I've read that some of the newer Genesis figures have faces that can be posed so that you can get more and different exressions on them, than on the older figures. Which figure(s) are the best for this? And how much of a difference is there?
Thanks!
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the G3 and G8 series have very complicated face rigging, so in the right hands expressions can be very realistic. just takes time, effort and reference material.
If they are Genesis 3 they are all the same and if they are Genesis 8 those have been improved from Genesis 3 and the Genesis 8 are all the same to. Your use the Power Poser to access more easily all the expression bones in Genesis 8. For that you need DAZ Studio 4.10.x. Careful though it is easy to make a face too distored with the Power Poser. Really need some sort of IK chain expression solver for the face I think.
Honestly, I think there are some issues with the G8s that make them inferior to the G3 rigs, especially when it comes to smiling. M8's smile is just creepy. That said, if you've got a good collection of second party morph dials, the G2 facial expressions can be excellent and for exagerated emotions, especially comic ones, the original Genesis seems to trump all the others.
If you really want to tweak expressions, though, I think DS's real secret weapon is Puppeteer. I'll frequently create a one or two more extreme variations of an expression as points in Puppeteer and place them in a triangle along with a more neutral one and just mouse around between the three of them until I get something that feels more random and natural.
You're right about Puppeteer, I think I said Power Poser or something like that.
But for the rest, that's strictly opinion when you use words like 'creepy'. The fact is technically in Genesis 8 compared to Genesis 3 there are more bones deforming more skinned mesh surfaces and that makes them more expressive.
Genesis 2, Genesis, and prior DAZ models use morph shapes for expressions and that technically can do less.
I do agree though it is sill difficult to get a nice and believeable expression for any of the morphs or face rigs without a lot of work. I'd try to personally create a lot if I wasn't CPU rendering. That's the other thing - in DAZ a openGL texture preview isn't indicative of a good pose & good expression - you have to render to evaluation and CPU rendering takes far too long.
Ideally, if the OP has an nVidia video card they should setup their aux viewport to show only the head and set the aux viewport in nVidia iRay rendered preview mode and the Puueteer/Power Poser to keep tweeking expressions until the OP finds them believable (and original enough to think 'oh, that's Victoria 8 Smile or Michael 7 Smirk...'
I believe G8 probably has the most expression possibilities and realism due to the Power Poser and the facial rigging that G8 has.
Don't forget G8's expression pack.. the one by Daz, it uses combos of facial bone posing and HD morphs together to get more realistic effects than you can get with just the bones alone. Don't get me wrong, the facial bones are great to play with, but I always start with the Daz expressions first, usually at lower strength and several, before I go tweaking the bones to my liking just so I get those added fine details.
Is Puppeteer built into DAZ Studio somewhere?
Yes, Power Poser & the Puppeteer are both in the list of available tabs under Window - Tabs file menu. It is more for making a sequence of poses / expressions for animation or to save a series of similar poses as presets.