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Faceshop EZ 8 and Facegen plugin

SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
edited December 1969 in The Commons

I'm thinking of using face photos to create characters for genesis. Both of these plugins are available but I wonder which one gives the best results? I read an old thread about this but there was only one example comparing the two. Does anyone have experience using either plugin or know of examples where they have been used in DAZ Studio 4.5 with Genesis?

Comments

  • phillip.cook_e980ad8417phillip.cook_e980ad8417 Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    Superdog:

    I just tossed $70 in the trash by buying FaceShop. It took a day to get the plugin to show up in Studio and I worked various actors for another day. About 80% of the time, when I tried to import the face back to Studio, the program quit with an error message. The few times it worked were far from satisfactory. As best I could tell, FaceShop just generated a texture and sort of plopped it in the vicinity of the face. The model, whether V4 or V5, m4 or m5, or basic child, had two noses and one of them had eyelashes. Don't waste your time or money.

    FaceGen is a usable program but it's quite expensive. Since the base mesh it uses has fewer connection vertices than the Genesis version 4 characters have, the mesh has to be reworked. That means spending about as much time as you would creating the mesh in a modeling program. The alternative is FaceGen Customizer, which changes the base mesh of the program to that of one you choose, such as wahtever actor you want from Studio. The process can take up to twenty hours of competer time for one mesh. Also, expect to shell out another $300 for the additional software.

    The alternative to both of these is to use the morphs in Studio to make the actor look as close as possible to a target photograph. Export the result as an .obj or .fbx and use Mudbox or ZBrush to detail and texture. From there you should be able to import the result back to Studio.

    After seeing my own examples of FaceShop and FaceGen, the alternative looks much better.

    Forget about getting support from anyone about the plugins. Daz doesn't help anyone having trouble with their own software, much less that from a third party. There is no support at all for FaceShop. Following the supprt link just takes you to a download page of old versions. Facegen support consists of the manuals and a discussion group.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    FaceGen exporter costs $99 and exports a usable mesh and texture to Genesis. I regard it as a good investment. The only issue with Facegen is eye distortion.

  • phillip.cook_e980ad8417phillip.cook_e980ad8417 Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    Faceshop costs $99 dollars when bought from Daz. From the the FaceShop website, it costs $69.95.

    Regardless of the cost, Faceshop still puts facial features in the wrong place and, when exported, there is no difference between the FaceShop modified character and the original Daz character, i. e. the mesh is unchanged.

    If there is a way to fix this problem I may change my mind about the product. However, Abalone just isn't interested in customer support.

  • JoeQuickJoeQuick Posts: 1,717
    edited December 1969

    If you want to make morphs and textures, your best bet is to learn how to do it by hand. Otherwise, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

  • BobvanBobvan Posts: 2,652
    edited December 1969

    wancow said:
    FaceGen exporter costs $99 and exports a usable mesh and texture to Genesis. I regard it as a good investment. The only issue with Facegen is eye distortion.

    Thats what I did bought the tool for $99.00 to create target morphs here are some successful examples http://fav.me/d4hv012 http://fav.me/d4hv01e Rachel Taylor http://fav.me/d4j9y3i

  • TjebTjeb Posts: 507
    edited December 1969

    I agree with the others. I played with Faceshop a couple of times then lost interest. If you really want to go in to this, it is better to consider other ways. First, have a look at the site of 'Agisoft PhotoScan' and '123D catch' (autodesk). and before waisting your money on Faceshop, follow the developments with the Kinect sensor (Microsoft).
    Try this: type in the YouTube search field: "kinect+face recognition"
    Hope this helps.

  • wancowwancow Posts: 2,708
    edited December 1969

    Bobvan said:
    wancow said:
    FaceGen exporter costs $99 and exports a usable mesh and texture to Genesis. I regard it as a good investment. The only issue with Facegen is eye distortion.

    Thats what I did bought the tool for $99.00 to create target morphs here are some successful examples http://fav.me/d4hv012 http://fav.me/d4hv01e Rachel Taylor http://fav.me/d4j9y3i

    Those are very, very nice! Where did you get the photos to get those morphs?

  • BobvanBobvan Posts: 2,652
    edited December 1969

    From the net google searches and I almost Forgot I crossed over Slider & Fringe in one of my land of the giants stories here is John Noble Lance Riddik Kim Kardashian (as herself) http://fav.me/d5e52ie http://fav.me/d5dff5o http://fav.me/d5dj7gj http://fav.me/d5kkxli http://fav.me/d5kkxlr (the one laying down is Deanna Lund) Kari Wührer &Jerry; O'Connell http://fav.me/d5lafwt http://fav.me/d5ly4d3 http://fav.me/d5ly4dz http://fav.me/d5ly4cu

  • RobbyBobbyRobbyBobby Posts: 325
    edited December 1969

    I've never gotten any useable results with Faceshop and I tried a number of different versions. I really like Facegen with Genesis. All of my characters today were created using Facegen. I'm not saying that they are perfect matches of the actors whose pictures were used to model against, but at least they look human.

  • RobbyBobbyRobbyBobby Posts: 325
    edited December 1969

    I guess I should give some examples:

    Tom-Tom.jpg
    795 x 1028 - 511K
    TJ.jpg
    795 x 1309 - 459K
    Christopher.jpg
    795 x 1309 - 647K
    Eric.jpg
    795 x 1028 - 397K
  • Zev0Zev0 Posts: 7,096
    edited March 2013

    Between the two, personally I find Faceshop is rubbish, the results are poor. Facegen is way better. I used facegen a lot but grew out of it. Nowadays I start from scratch in Zbrush and I get better results than both of them:) But facegen is still quite awesome.

    Post edited by Zev0 on
  • JoeQuickJoeQuick Posts: 1,717
    edited December 1969

    RobbyBobby said:
    I guess I should give some examples:

    Christian Slater I recognize right away. Is another Christopher Meloni (Elliott from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit)?

  • RobbyBobbyRobbyBobby Posts: 325
    edited December 1969

    Yep

  • lhayworthlhayworth Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    My very first post on the Daz forums. I agree face shop is total rubbish.
    after paying for it $68aud for it I deleted it.
    Crashed, hung froze, when I did generate a morph completely, unusable.
    I had a better result with face studio in poser. unfortunately that doesn't support V4 or M4 what a shame.
    If your thinking about getting faceshop, stand under a shower and tear up money instead. ;-)
    No biggie I blame me for not looking on forums beforehand ..... :-)

  • TY3DArtTY3DArt Posts: 154
    edited December 1969

    Jewby said:
    Superdog:

    I just tossed $70 in the trash by buying FaceShop. It took a day to get the plugin to show up in Studio and I worked various actors for another day. About 80% of the time, when I tried to import the face back to Studio, the program quit with an error message. The few times it worked were far from satisfactory. As best I could tell, FaceShop just generated a texture and sort of plopped it in the vicinity of the face. The model, whether V4 or V5, m4 or m5, or basic child, had two noses and one of them had eyelashes. Don't waste your time or money.

    FaceGen is a usable program but it's quite expensive. Since the base mesh it uses has fewer connection vertices than the Genesis version 4 characters have, the mesh has to be reworked. That means spending about as much time as you would creating the mesh in a modeling program. The alternative is FaceGen Customizer, which changes the base mesh of the program to that of one you choose, such as wahtever actor you want from Studio. The process can take up to twenty hours of competer time for one mesh. Also, expect to shell out another $300 for the additional software.

    The alternative to both of these is to use the morphs in Studio to make the actor look as close as possible to a target photograph. Export the result as an .obj or .fbx and use Mudbox or ZBrush to detail and texture. From there you should be able to import the result back to Studio.

    After seeing my own examples of FaceShop and FaceGen, the alternative looks much better.

    Forget about getting support from anyone about the plugins. Daz doesn't help anyone having trouble with their own software, much less that from a third party. There is no support at all for FaceShop. Following the supprt link just takes you to a download page of old versions. Facegen support consists of the manuals and a discussion group.


    I have Mudbox.. So I would be able to export my model as OBJ / and Import to mudbox. Make the necessary details and then export back to daz? I think FBX is only used for facegen right? Any help would be much appreciated.

  • ghastlycomicghastlycomic Posts: 2,531
    edited December 1969

    Tried FaceGen.

    Neat but I can't live with the eye and eyelash distortion. It ruins every face it generates. I just use Sculptris and it works fine.

  • info_b3470fa520info_b3470fa520 Posts: 897
    edited September 2013

    tmraider said:
    Superdog: Forget about getting support from anyone about the plugins. Daz doesn't help anyone having trouble with their own software, much less that from a third party. There is no support at all for FaceShop. Following the supprt link just takes you to a download page of old versions. Facegen support consists of the manuals and a discussion group .

    Gee, have you tried to contact FaceShop (see under "Contact") or call 650-302-0894? You know, like email and telephone?
    Many have and got good support...
    Laslo

    Post edited by info_b3470fa520 on
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