|
|
Facial animation in TS 7.5
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Facial animation in TS 7.5 // Roundtable
Post by mykyl1966 // Apr 17, 2007, 4:00am
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
I am looking forward to getting my hands on TS 7.5 but one tiny little thing still bothers me. :)
Facial animation and the ability to create moods in the characters. Everything else seems to have brought TS up to what I want and need for my stories but all the fantastic animation could be let down if its a struggle to create expression in the faces of the characters.
This has not put me off in any way but it is a concern I have.
I never thought the facial animator thing was of any real use but perhaps thats just a lack of understanding on my part.
Perhaps I can set a skeleton for the entire character and then a separate one for animating the facial features, breathing etc? if so then my mind will be put at ease. Another app i have can only have one set of bones which limits me.
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by jayr // Apr 17, 2007, 4:36am
|
jayr
Total Posts: 1074
|
take a look at this thread:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=2573
it should allow you to morph objects i.e. expressions, moods, lip poses, together to get what your after, thats what i'm hoping anyway. |
Post by mykyl1966 // Apr 17, 2007, 5:03am
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Thank you for pointing out that one and I will most likely use it but would at some point prefer a system that does not involve multiple meshes to morph between... I know I am a pain. :)
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by Steinie // Apr 17, 2007, 5:13am
|
Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
|
Roman "It is true we do not have yet replacement for old Facial Animator (we will) and I see some users saying "If trueSpace7.5 does not have X" (substitute your favorite feature) I will not buy it. Let me put my 2 cents here..."
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?p=28890#post28890 |
Post by mykyl1966 // Apr 17, 2007, 6:00am
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Yup I read that and that is why I was careful NOT to say I wont buy etc and throw my rattle out the pram type rubbish that some folks do because of a certain feature lack. ;)
What I really want to know is if his comment "I believe you could create facial rigs and use them for facial animation." has been tested yet. 'I believe...' is not confirmation.
I just wondered about other potential ways that are confirmed. :)
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by mykyl1966 // Jun 1, 2007, 1:58am
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Well I tried to create a facial rig for a character that already had a biped skeleton and nope no joy. It asks if you want to change to the new skeleton instead. I really hope this can be done in the near future.
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jun 1, 2007, 2:10am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
I believe Mr. Bones is working on an add-on that will allow morphing without requiring multiple meshes. You guys'd have to ask him about it though. ;)
-Jack. |
Post by mykyl1966 // Jun 1, 2007, 2:33am
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Thats fine but I hoped to have an inbuilt solution as it is part and parcel of character animation which is what TS was/is going to be able to do.
I don't want to have to continue to pay out money just to get some basic features. I know the above sounds like a moan and it is honestly not just an observation on what I would expect from TS. Once the basics are there then perhaps more advanced tools could be added for a fee.
It took a lot of begging as it is to get TS itself. :)
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by Forcemaster2000 // Jun 1, 2007, 3:28am
|
Forcemaster2000
Total Posts: 130
|
I don't want to have to continue to pay out money just to get some basic features. I know the above sounds like a moan Cheers
Mike R
You're not saying anything that a lot of us aren't already thinking! :D
I bought TS 7.5 with animation first-most on my mind as well. While it's showing tons of promise...there are many things making it fall short of being truly use-able, hence I'm looking forward to the 7.51 update and hoping that that will resolve many of these issues. I seriously doubt that it will resolve all of them, but if it makes significant headway then I'll believe that more is on the way.
Work-arounds and by-passes are all well and good, but shouldn't be necessary when you're paying out good money for a finished product. There seems to be an almost fanatical desire by some here at this forum to try and, "not hurt Roman's feelings". What's that all about anyway? He's a professional who's providing a product and a service. We're customers, the one's keeping him afloat. If we don't point out flaws in the product and suggest features we want, how are we going to get them? |
Post by holm // Jun 1, 2007, 4:52am
|
holm
Total Posts: 33
|
Well, my ecstasy for TS 7.5 is a little cooled of since it's practical not possible to work with facial expressions and the really intuitive and nice new animation tools. But's also possible that i'm too silly to make a facial rig ...
But i have 2 hopes. JackEwards will implement a new TS 7.5 morph tool or Roman let implement a Morphing or facial animator in TS 7.51. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jun 1, 2007, 5:26am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
Last I checked my morph script should work fine with 7.5. :)
If you guys are noticing anything not working right, let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix it.
-Jack. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jun 3, 2007, 9:06pm
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
Work-arounds and by-passes are all well and good, but shouldn't be necessary when you're paying out good money for a finished product. There seems to be an almost fanatical desire by some here at this forum to try and, "not hurt Roman's feelings". What's that all about anyway? He's a professional who's providing a product and a service. We're customers, the one's keeping him afloat. If we don't point out flaws in the product and suggest features we want, how are we going to get them?
I must say I am in full agreement with most of what's being said here.
As far as not hurting Roman's feelings goes - well Roman is a big boy who is responsible for his own feelings same as everyone else.:) What I object to are self indulgent whinging and complaints which is a far different thing to "pointing out flaws in the product and suggesting features we want". Constructive criticism is exactly that - constructive, for all concerned IMO.
Re tS's character tools - they are obviously quite versatile at this stage yet decidedly incomplete. The new bones toolset finally lives up to the promise began in tS 4 or 5 (I forget now when they first appeared) so they have been a long time coming - yet there are still many features missing particularly in the area of integrated facial posing with full character posing.
One thing I would dearly love to see is a tS skeleton preset with natural human movement constraints, supplied with the app. A skeleton with natural human joint limits which could be fitted to a wide range of humanoid characters simply through adjustment of bone length whilst already set up to easily accept BVH input and so on. Theoretically I could use the existing toolset to create such a skeleton myself but how much more practical it would be to simply grab a preset skele from a tS library? |
Post by Tiles // Jun 3, 2007, 9:34pm
|
Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
|
One thing I would dearly love to see is a tS skeleton preset with natural human movement constraints, supplied with the app. A skeleton with natural human joint limits which could be fitted to a wide range of humanoid characters simply through adjustment of bone length whilst already set up to easily accept BVH input and so on. Theoretically I could use the existing toolset to create such a skeleton myself but how much more practical it would be to simply grab a preset skele from a tS library?
It's not that easy. Dependand of the mesh flow you need a proper vertex weighting. Especially with animated skeletons a pain that can result in totally wrong deformings. And you may end in more time to fix it up than building it from scratch. Well, yes, when you always use the same human shape it may work. Like using a Poser mesh. But use a Make Human mesh with some modifications and you end in another meshflow which needs another weighting, and the animation also doesn't fit anymore. A fat guy has another walk cycle than a slim one.
Oroe has started a learning thread for the new bones where he provides a sample rig. This may be a good starting point when you need a somehow ready shaped skeleton :) |
Post by W!ZARD // Jun 3, 2007, 11:22pm
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
It's not that easy. Dependand of the mesh flow you need a proper vertex weighting. Especially with animated skeletons a pain that can result in totally wrong deformings. And you may end in more time to fix it up than building it from scratch. Well, yes, when you always use the same human shape it may work. Like using a Poser mesh. But use a Make Human mesh with some modifications and you end in another meshflow which needs another weighting, and the animation also doesn't fit anymore. A fat guy has another walk cycle than a slim one.
Oroe has started a learning thread for the new bones where he provides a sample rig. This may be a good starting point when you need a somehow ready shaped skeleton :)
Chuckle - yeah I figured if it was that easy it would have already been done. But you mentioned vertex weighting and how it differs for different meshes - obviously that is a factor to consider when attaching a skin to your skeleton. I'm suggesting having a skeleton with predefined (and relatively natural) human joint limits.
The new tools make it very easy to create a new skeleton on demand - the time consuming part is firstly setting joint limits (who wants knees that bend forward?) and then attaching skin to skele and fine tuning the vertex weights. By having a pre built (and editable) skele with the joint constraints already set for an average humaniod figure a lot of time and effort could be saved. Of course I'm something of a novice in this area so I could be missing some crucial point so please bear that in mind.
I know almost nothing about BVH import for example. I'm assuming that BVH files drive the skeleton which then in turn drives the vertices. Even if my assumption is incorrect such a predefined skele would still be handy for many projects using Key Frame animation. |
Post by mykyl1966 // Jun 4, 2007, 1:02am
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Other applications have these ready made skeletons that speed up the work involved. Not only biped but also quadraped skeletons.
If you insert a skeleton it creates basic weighting just like Truespace already does when you attach the skin to the skeleton so there would be no problem in that way.
Might have to give it a try. If I find the site that lists joint limits in an average human I will post here. (I really need to clear out my bookmarks.)
Cheers
Mike R
Edit: I just read you were talking about for use with bvh files. Thats a different beast and not something I am into. |
Post by Forcemaster2000 // Jun 5, 2007, 4:50am
|
Forcemaster2000
Total Posts: 130
|
I must say I am in full agreement with most of what's being said here.
Hope I didn't come off sounding rude :o It's just that I see the promise of the new skeletal/animation controls and want to see what looks to be possible now be fully realized! :banana: :banana: |
Post by Burnart // Jun 5, 2007, 1:23pm
|
Burnart
Total Posts: 839
|
The nice new softpaint mesh deform tools coupled with a morph target system sounds like the go......... lack of a morph target system just keeps popping up doesn't it. |
|
