G3 and G8 Expressions on G9

Kharma

Is there a way to tranfer expressions from G3 and G8 to G9, something similar to Zevo's Pose Converter?  

Matt_Castle

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been any expression converter product between any generations - even comparatively similar ones such as G3 and G8. And no, I'm not counting the method for moving around/deleting library files to make G8.0 expressions work on G8.1 - that's not conversion, that's reactivation. (I found that method in the first place, so I know what it's doing).

I'd say the chances of such an expression converter at all are extremely slim, and the chances of it replicating expressions closely even less.

richardandtracy

I have looked at the face rigging and sliders for expression transfer.

Some expressions are mostly done with the face rig (easier to convert), some are done with special morphs (impossible to transfer with a pose transfer) and some use sliders associated with the base character of each. The sliders can affect the bones in the face rig and others affect a combination of morphs & bones. The bone bit can be transferred relatively easily, the morph component can't.

There are fewer bones in the G9 face rig than the G8 face rig. Those that are in both do compare fairly well with each other, basically with the G9 bones covering a wider area. If a part of the pose applied to the missing G8 bone is added to each of G9 bones on either side, a pretty representative movement is transferred. It's not perfect, but part way there. It is, I have to say, long and slow work tweaking each G9 face bone and trying to get it to look like the effect of the G8 face bone so that information can be codified in the script. This effort is currently already incorporated in my G8-G9 pose transfer script. 

A gentleman has been working with my transfer script to make as many of the base character expression sliders work as possible from G8 to G9. For some reason, he wants me to go through and verify it all.. I have not had time to check that yet. I need to.

As for newly morphed expressions that do not use the G8 base character sliders & bones, then I very much doubt there will be a way of transferring them to G9 from G8 unless you do a morph.

So, I offer you a mixed bag. My script could well work well enough just using the rigging to show expressions, however it's probably a bit hit & miss depending on how the PA created the expression (sliders or rigging). It may get better in the future if I can get time. In my G8->G9 pose transfer script I misunderstood the interaction of the metatarsals and a high heel slider in G9. I'm part way through a G9->G8 pose transfer script, where I hope to correct the misunderstanding, and then I plan to re-visit the G8->G9 pose transfer and correct the high-heel/metatarsal interaction in the revised version while also adding in all the expression sliders where possible. Can't offer a timescale, as Real Life is impinging on me at the moment. And, it has to be said, I have no real feel for G9, so scripts involving are a 'labour' rather than a 'labour-of-love'.

Regards,

Richard.