best workflow to generate talking head animations with Gen 1,2,3,8 characters

Chakradude

I used mimic full version years ago so I know what I want; hi quality lip sync . I am going to be generating a lot of talking head video and I want to make it more interesting to look at. I am considering iclone7 and/or crazytalk8 but I would like to hear from someone who already has some experience with either of those product lines importing any of the genesis family. it seems like you must have 3d Xchange or at least Daz genesis extention to pull this off.

I would love to hear any actual experiences on the topic

 

Bob

Dim Reaper

I had a very similar problem a couple of months ago - I needed to create some talking animations for an education project at work.  Having used Mimic 3 many years ago, I tried Mimic Live and wasn't overly happy with the results, which is why I took a look at the Reallusion programs.

Crazytalk 8: If you just want talking head style characters with a reasonable degree of realism then this is the cheapest solution.  It will do text to speech (but the Windows voices it uses are limited), or it will take a recorded file.  The results aren't perfect, but it is of vidoe game cutscene quality and more importantly it renders very quickly.  You are, however, limited to the characters that come with the program or with the add-on packs such as the Realistic Human 100 pack, which can become expensive.  If you are not too worried about a large variety of characters, and especially if you are short of time then this is a good solution.

iClone 7: There is a brief explanation of the workflow involved for using Daz characters in iClone 7 here: https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/daz3d/

There is an iClone 7 bundle that includes 3D Exchange, Character Creator 2 (soon to be upgrades to v3) and the Daz Genesis Extension for $299 (though if you have an earlier version of iClone you might get a lower price when you log in).  Link to the bundle here: https://www.reallusion.com/store/product.html?l=1&p=ic
iClone 7 alone gives you a lot more options for talking heads than Crazytalk just from within the program.  Setting up the Daz Genesis 8 or 3 export/import is fiddly the first time because you have to copy phonemes to Daz Studio and add them to the figure before exporting.  Then you take the figure into 3D Exchange where you can work on the shaders and from there you can send it to iClone 7. 
Once you have the Daz figure in iClone 7, you can use text to speech, record "live" or use a recorded speech clip.  I need to revisit and refine my project for next summer, so beforfe then I plan to ask some friends to record dialogue for me for the different characters.  You can also add scenes or HDRI backgrounds.
I haven't had time to master the program, so only used it for talking heads, but there are a lot of animation options for the figures that you can buy and add in.

For me, where iClone 7 beats Daz Studio is in the speed of animation and rendering.  Of course the quality is not equal to an iray rendered still in DS, but it is more than sufficient for most animation projects.

Regarding the quality though, I think those of us that do this is a hobby or a profession forget how amazing it can seem to other people.  I created around 10 animations introducing tasks in a project, and completed them over a weekend.  The kids that worked through the project thought that the animations were amazing.

One last thing - I wasn't certain of exactly what I wanted and was on a tight deadline, so I bought Crazytalk 8, and then later bought the iClone 7 / 3D Exchange / Daz Extension.  There are demos available for you to try out the products and I would recommend trying them before shelling out a lot of cash.

I'm sure other people will post their experiences with iClone, but if you want any more info then let me know.

 

wolf359

Chakradude said:

I used mimic full version years ago so I know what I want; hi quality lip sync . I am going to be generating a lot of talking head video and I want to make it more interesting to look at. I am considering iclone7 and/or crazytalk8 but I would like to hear from someone who already has some experience with either of those product lines importing any of the genesis family. it seems like you must have 3d Xchange or at least Daz genesis extention to pull this off.

I would love to hear any actual experiences on the topic

 

Bob

Check your  Private messages.

Chakradude

Actually I would love to do this all in mimic live but its not possible to import audio files is it? I want to use prerecorded video footage as the basis of my work.

 

 

Chakradude

Dim Reaper said:

I had a very similar problem a couple of months ago - I needed to create some talking animations for an education project at work.  Having used Mimic 3 many years ago, I tried Mimic Live and wasn't overly happy with the results, which is why I took a look at the Reallusion programs.

Crazytalk 8: If you just want talking head style characters with a reasonable degree of realism then this is the cheapest solution.  It will do text to speech (but the Windows voices it uses are limited), or it will take a recorded file.  The results aren't perfect, but it is of vidoe game cutscene quality and more importantly it renders very quickly.  You are, however, limited to the characters that come with the program or with the add-on packs such as the Realistic Human 100 pack, which can become expensive.  If you are not too worried about a large variety of characters, and especially if you are short of time then this is a good solution.

iClone 7: There is a brief explanation of the workflow involved for using Daz characters in iClone 7 here: https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/daz3d/

There is an iClone 7 bundle that includes 3D Exchange, Character Creator 2 (soon to be upgrades to v3) and the Daz Genesis Extension for $299 (though if you have an earlier version of iClone you might get a lower price when you log in).  Link to the bundle here: https://www.reallusion.com/store/product.html?l=1&p=ic
iClone 7 alone gives you a lot more options for talking heads than Crazytalk just from within the program.  Setting up the Daz Genesis 8 or 3 export/import is fiddly the first time because you have to copy phonemes to Daz Studio and add them to the figure before exporting.  Then you take the figure into 3D Exchange where you can work on the shaders and from there you can send it to iClone 7. 
Once you have the Daz figure in iClone 7, you can use text to speech, record "live" or use a recorded speech clip.  I need to revisit and refine my project for next summer, so beforfe then I plan to ask some friends to record dialogue for me for the different characters.  You can also add scenes or HDRI backgrounds.
I haven't had time to master the program, so only used it for talking heads, but there are a lot of animation options for the figures that you can buy and add in.

For me, where iClone 7 beats Daz Studio is in the speed of animation and rendering.  Of course the quality is not equal to an iray rendered still in DS, but it is more than sufficient for most animation projects.

Regarding the quality though, I think those of us that do this is a hobby or a profession forget how amazing it can seem to other people.  I created around 10 animations introducing tasks in a project, and completed them over a weekend.  The kids that worked through the project thought that the animations were amazing.

One last thing - I wasn't certain of exactly what I wanted and was on a tight deadline, so I bought Crazytalk 8, and then later bought the iClone 7 / 3D Exchange / Daz Extension.  There are demos available for you to try out the products and I would recommend trying them before shelling out a lot of cash.

I'm sure other people will post their experiences with iClone, but if you want any more info then let me know.

 

Thanks for your feedback Reaper since I am looking to leverege my huge daz model collection then iclone seems more suited to that than crazytalk. I did actually download crazytalk8 but so far have been less than impressed.

wolf359

Chakradude said:

Actually I would love to do this all in mimic live but its not possible to import audio files is it? I want to use prerecorded video footage as the basis of my work.

Chakradude said:

 

 

Hi I use the older mimic pro 3 for my G2 Character lipsynch

And yes I use  prerecorded Audio with Mimic Live for G3/8
it works great for me
but you  will need a second Device to feed the Audio to Mimic Live (Preferably a laptop)

I own three Computers.

Details here:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/115371/for-my-fellow-animators-using-mimic-live#latest

Chakradude

Thanks much wolf for your clear information. I am very tempted to get back to mimic pro as I have loads of genesis 2 content. What system configuration do you have mimic pro working on?

 

wolf359

Hi
I am runnning My old seat of the venerable Mimic Pro 3 on a Win7 SP1 machine no problems.

You have to export your Genesis 2 figures to a poser CR2 for them to work with Mimic pro 3 but the animated PZ2 it creates, loads into DAZ studio just fine.

Currently none of my machines are using Win 10 because I  still have a few critical pieces of 32 bit software ,in my Character animation pipeline, that have no modern Day equivalents and will not work with Win10.

Chakradude

wolf359 said:

Hi
I am runnning My old seat of the venerable Mimic Pro 3 on a Win7 SP1 machine no problems.

You have to export your Genesis 2 figures to a poser CR2 for them to work with Mimic pro 3 but the animated PZ2 it creates, loads into DAZ studio just fine.

Currently none of my machines are using Win 10 because I  still have a few critical pieces of 32 bit software ,in my Character animation pipeline, that have no modern Day equivalents and will not work with Win10.

Ok so, sounds like it won't run on sytem 10? (i'll admit I know very little about system archetecture, 32bit etc..) If that is the case, I guess I can install it on my old bryce imac but it won't be rendering very fast....

wolf359

 guess I can install it on my old bryce imac but it won't be rendering very fast....

 

Actually you wont have to do any actual rendering on the machine where mimic is installed.
It only create the phonemes from the imported audio and exports a
Poser&Daz compatible animated pose file( PZ2)
only for Genesis 2 or earlier mind you.

That  lipsinc pose file can be copied over whatever Machine you will using for the final full renders in DS

Your only auto lipsinc option for G3/8 ,in Daz studio, is Mimic Live
as those Figures will not export a proper poser CR2.