Facial Mocap for Daz using Faceware

surody

I bought a Faceware kit to do facial mocap for my animations in Daz.

Here's some knowledge I collected thus far:

1. Daz Studio exports the morphs with namespaces like "head__". Faceware can't handle the double "_".
2. When using the Daz to Maya script, which you can buy here https://www.daz3d.com/daz-to-maya you can import the model and blendshapes to Maya without namespaces and send them to Motionbuilder and from Motionbuilder export them to Daz Studio
3. When I import the fbx into Daz and save it as property preset I can technically use the facial mocap at this point but I have to rename the blendshapes of the .duf file with for example wordpad.

Does anybody know how to change the generated namespaces by Daz within Daz or in Motionbuilder? There's a namespace tool in Motionbuilder but I can't figure out how to rename the shapes, only the bones.

Here's a test I did:
https://media.giphy.com/media/fQixfQesUoOdl4pJk7/giphy.gif

Bryan Steagall

Hi Surody

I use facial mocap a lot with Daz characters and motionbuilder, I use Dynamixyz, not faceware, but the pipeline is basically the same. I've experiemented quite a bit with this, and the easiest way is to rename the blendshapes in the .duf file manually.  When I export from studio to mobu, I select only the head. blendshapess with the export rules, which export the blendshapes with a face__ prefix.. when I bring it back into daz, I just do a mass find/replace and replace the face__ with nothing.. which cuts it out and saves it.

You can edit an ascii fbx file the same way, but it is more of a pain to do (and studio defaults to binary) and I don't think you can edit the blendshapes the same way from within mobu.

here's some of my work, all done with dxyz, mobu and daz studio https://vimeo.com/album/5150493

surody

Bryan Steagall said:

Hi Surody

I use facial mocap a lot with Daz characters and motionbuilder, I use Dynamixyz, not faceware, but the pipeline is basically the same. I've experiemented quite a bit with this, and the easiest way is to rename the blendshapes in the .duf file manually.  When I export from studio to mobu, I select only the head. blendshapess with the export rules, which export the blendshapes with a face__ prefix.. when I bring it back into daz, I just do a mass find/replace and replace the face__ with nothing.. which cuts it out and saves it.

You can edit an ascii fbx file the same way, but it is more of a pain to do (and studio defaults to binary) and I don't think you can edit the blendshapes the same way from within mobu.

here's some of my work, all done with dxyz, mobu and daz studio https://vimeo.com/album/5150493

The issue here is that Faceware isn't able to work with the prefix. When I try to add the blendshapes in the character setup menu the plugin just crashes. I wrote a mail to the support and they told me Faceware has issues with "extraneous" spaces or periods.
The pipeline you mentioned and the renaming is the same for me plus Maya inbetween and the renaming is little bit more complex for me because I can't just replace "head__" for example.

surody

Bryan Steagall said:

Hi Surody

I use facial mocap a lot with Daz characters and motionbuilder, I use Dynamixyz, not faceware, but the pipeline is basically the same. I've experiemented quite a bit with this, and the easiest way is to rename the blendshapes in the .duf file manually.  When I export from studio to mobu, I select only the head. blendshapess with the export rules, which export the blendshapes with a face__ prefix.. when I bring it back into daz, I just do a mass find/replace and replace the face__ with nothing.. which cuts it out and saves it.

You can edit an ascii fbx file the same way, but it is more of a pain to do (and studio defaults to binary) and I don't think you can edit the blendshapes the same way from within mobu.

here's some of my work, all done with dxyz, mobu and daz studio https://vimeo.com/album/5150493

Edit: Wait, don't you import directly as FBX into Motionbuilder? You said you edit the .duf before export into MoBu?

2. Edit: I read that wrong, I guess you still do the same like me: Daz(FBX)->MoBu->Daz->saving->.duf edit-> applying without the Maya inbetween though.

Bryan Steagall

Hi Surody

Correct.. I've submitted tickets to have that export prefix looked at, but I guess they've never looked at it or don't think it high up on the chain, there are so few of us doing animation..  good job on the gif you sent too.. looks really good.

There's a lot you can add in motionbuilder to make the facial animation even better (without having to manually animate them).. for example: https://bryan_steagall-hotmail.tinytake.com/sf/MzIxMzYzMV85NjMxMjg1  where I have a constraint to move the eyelids just a bit when moving the eyes around, and a constraint that causes the jaw clench to activate when the mouth reaches a certain negative value in "mouth open", just like it does in real life when you clench your teeth

Glad to see someone else with the same type of pipeline.. if you have any questions, please feel free to message me

 

surody

Hey Bryan,

I set up the eyes. It works fine, thanks! Next I will look into the mouth. I wonder if you can use HD morph imports as Daz PA for animations, do you know anything?
The bones are still not visible with X-Ray. Not that it really matters. This seems to be caused by the Maya pipeline, because when I import from Daz directly to MoBu with the same model I see them.
 

Bryan Steagall

Hi Surody

They will export, but you won't necessarily see the full blendshape in motionbuilder, as the mesh that is exported is the base mesh.. not the HD one, so in some of the blendshapes, you won't see the full effect until you bring it back into studio.

Bryan Steagall

 

btw, if anyone is interested.. here's a good link to motionbuilder training.. it is for a much older version, but most everything still applies   https://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/motionbuilder-issue-1-6

Veneris

I made this animation but it is not with Faceware. Is a Facial Motion Capture with IphoneX, render in DAZ Studio with Octane Render for DAZ Studio.

p0rt

you should have just facecap X for maya

Leonides02

Veneris said:

I made this animation but it is not with Faceware. Is a Facial Motion Capture with IphoneX, render in DAZ Studio with Octane Render for DAZ Studio.

Cool! Veneris, can you tell us your workflow?