Is it possible to make the Genesis 2 female smile nicely
cdemerit
Posts: 505
Is it possible to make the Genesis 2 female smile without looking like her face is being ripped off or "I just passed Gas" look?
Trying to make a Genesis 2 female character smile, one of those fake I'm here to help you but really I just want you to die smiles airport workers get... but... so far, either the face looks like They are in agony, Have a mouth full of braces, or oops, I just passed gas looks... Just kinda curious if a decent smile can be done.
Mod Edit. Added title to body of the psot and shortened the thread title to save breaking forum formatting
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I have the smile delight package here from DAZ and it works pretty well. Some of the poses sets are a bit stiff looking but the half smile levels are decent. I think part of the issue comes from the modlels all having those really perfect all same sized teeth.
Biggest problem I find is that most of the smile morphs don't move the rest face, which is creepy as all getout. Generally I use the happy morph as a base and then modify it with other smile/mouth morphs, but if you're staring with the smile, make the eyes squint and the cheeks flex/puff.
Another important thing is to take breaks and look away every now and then, it doesn't matter if you're looking at a photo of a real person, if you stare at a smile for 5 minutes it starts to look incredibly creepy.
...that's what I often do as well, combined with Simple Smile, and a bit of either the "AH" or "EH" "phoneme (I know they go by a different name in the parameters tab however, it's late, I'm dyslexic, and the FF spell checker is way off the mark)
Greetings,
If I want a decent smile, I always start with one of the flirt expressions. (NOT the ones that wink, the other one.) It's what I see as a very natural smile, and takes into account several different parts of the face.
There's one person I see pretty often on deviantArt who does these broad smiles on almost all their characters, and it indents the entire mouth weirdly, and just creeps me the heck out. The characters are nice, but the smiles drive me nuts. I'm WAY too conflict averse to point it out, since everybody lauds them for their work, but it's a constant reminder to me to be subtle about the smile level I use. :-/
I can't ever dial in a smile in a large way (like 100% or anything close), it just never looks right to me. Now my 'facial expression' sense might not be the best in the world, all things considered, so it's nice to hear that other folks think that smiles are really hard to get right in DAZ.
I end up tweaking the flirt, smile-full-face, mouth-open, and usually some quirking of the eyebrow, etc., but all in really small doses. I can do a really sad looking character vastly easier than an openly happy one, which makes me...uhhh...well...sad, because I like rendering happy, contemplative, and pleasant moments.
-- Morgan
p.s. Another thing that'll just break a smile for me is the teeth being super-bright, or essentially being 'lit' on their own. Commercials and actors, to the contrary...the truth is most of the time you don't see people's teeth in smiles, or if you do they're not lit as fully as the lips or skin...
Unless they are trying to get your vote or sell you a used car...
You should try with EmmaAndJordi's expressions - they have full and partial sliders, so you only dial as much as you want. On Gen2F and Gen2M, there is really no better expression packs if you ask me.
Hmm. Sadly some of the expressions just don't look that well on certain characters. Men's expressions can often look 'fiendish' or somewhat 'rictus' like.
Kamion covered this, but in detail:
Smile dials, even good ones, often just pose the mouth. Actually smiling involves the whole face, and it's one of the hardest expressions to do digitally because every conscious part of your brain knows how to read another person's smile.
Brows up - a sincerely smiling person raises their eyebrows. Brows neutral or down makes a smile look sad or fake. Sometimes raising the outer eyebrows more also helps.
Cheeks flexed/cheeks eye flex/cheeks balloon: Take it carefully on this one so you don't get overly bunchy "apple cheeks," but usually you need some of these to make it look like the smile extends to the whole face. Never use a smile dial at 100%. This one is at about 65.
Lower eyelids up: Holding your eyes all the way open when you smile will make you look a bit crazy. If that's not what you want, use the lower eyelids up dial a bit to go with the cheek flex. Squint can also be profitably used.
Pupils: This may seem subtle but it makes a huge difference. If you look at pictures of smiling models, their pupils are always big. Turn off the limits and dial those pupils larger.
The other thing I've done in Image 2 here is lifted G2F's chin and had her look at the camera, so we don't get the idea she's uncomfortable and evading our eyes.
Don't forget that photos of real smiles on real people often look fake too. As SickleYield says, it's a very hard expression to capture.
...wondering what broke the margins on this thread. Don't see any links.
Sickle's right. That's why EmmaAndJordi's packs are so useful - they somehow affect the facial muscles too (and you can always mix and match the halves). The best expression pack for Genesis is the one by Smay. Both vendors don't finish on affecting just the mouth.
Big fan of Smay's sets, which I've cross ported using GenX2.
That said, one of the tools that I've found most useful for getting natural smiles and expressions in DAZ is Puppeteer. Rather than loading in just a single smile preset, I'll apply two or tree different expressions at different points in Pupperteer and then use the mouse to find the median spot between them that feels the most natural. Since I'm not going through the involved process of first adjusting this morph and then that morph and then this morph again, ad infinitum, using puppeteer this way introduces a lot more randomness into the expression and gives the feeling of an emotion that's being caught in the process of happening spontaneously rather than being specifically posed.
I must admit the original thread title brought a genuine smile to my face!
I think that's because the smile is dynamic--it never sits on the face for much more than a flash unless posing for a shot. It's the movement from neutral to smile that we pick up and gives us that sense of reality or fake.
Also in total agreement with Cybersox...puppeteer is excellent for facial expressions.
:cheese:
nevah noticed before, the lil bridge in the background landscape.
I have found over the years that expressions are best done by mixing what is available then trying to rely on one single dial. It can take a while to find a good mix but there is no short way around it. With Genesis 2 being extremely versatile in how morphs can be mixed, no one expression set will really work with all combinaitons so mixing up your expressions to get what you want is the best way. And as someone who owns the Smile Delight bundle, I highly recommend it. They are very well done and mix very well.
A couple smiles and not a smile done by subtle mixing of expressions
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/42174
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/39115
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/38153
A few more things I remembered, depending on what morph you're using where the lips are in relation to the teeth can change, which means that a smile on one face morph can look like a super creepy smile on another. Thankfully the Daz face morphs (at least I think its them come with morphs to move the jaws) make sure that there's never more than a sliver of gums visible unless you're rendering the joker.
Faces have lines. There is a reason laugh lines are also called smile lines. Even toddlers will get lines around their eyes and from their nose to the corners of their mouth.
Try to avoid perfect symmetry. It doesn't happen a lot in the real world, and is another one of those things that throws you straight into the uncanny valley
This tutorial is for drawing, but still has some excellent suggestions, particularly in respects to how the whole face is involved in expressions. http://tracyjb.deviantart.com/art/Lackadaisy-Expressions-193978013
Make the face you're trying to imitate, sure you'll look silly, but pay attention and you'll be able to feel what's moving.
I should have recommended your work! Your faces always look so lifelike.
a few multi-million dollar smile photo references. :lol:
browsing thru the old timey glamour shots, not much in full out smiles. glamour doesn't = happiness?
Sexy/mysterious is easier to fake after a lengthy day of photo shoots than "happy," I'm guessing. ;) Also, the further back you go, the longer it took to take the photos, and the harder it would be to maintain a real-looking smile for that long!
Two other points. The appearance in the view-field, dose not always look like the face in the render. Especially things like lips parted, or a little bit of mouth open. More often then I would like, I just give up and leave it wherever I gave up at.
"Mouth corners up" dose the entire mouth, not just the outer most part of the mouth. Getting that nice round open bottom lip smile is near impossible, it more often ends up a sharp fold in the center of the bottom lip.
(EDIT)
How about sports, Like when someone wins gold at the Olympics for example. A thought.
This is the smile I was looking for. but I ended up with the Joker from Batman...
Anyways, I got a passable smile for now, and will work on this in the future... Ironically, the smile really isn't needed to be real, as I'm considering making this background character into a hologram, with a fake warm smile... but that will have to wait. I'm so far behind on this project, that I've already pushed back the release date 2 months...
well, after several attempts.... I have determined I have a career in modeling psycho -killers and clowns...
I think I made "overly attached girlfriend", however, I do think its usable. The attached picture needs work, but is also a closeup far beyond my needs...
Turn the smile dial down by about .2 and raise the eyebrows?
...hmm...if I see a cabin attendant smiling like that, it says to me, time to go by train.
That could be a very realistic attendant smile, though... ;)
I think another trick might be covering up the bottom of the face and compare.
...hmm...if I see a cabin attendant smiling like that, it says to me, time to go by train.
If only you saw some of the earlier ones... actually, you'd be well served to skip this flight....
Turn the smile dial down by about .2 and raise the eyebrows?agreed, the bottom lip has that kink in it in the center. I've seen normal smiles like that around the net, and all of them, the lower lip is more round curved, rather then a sharp 'V' shape. That's what I was referring to "Corners up" not exactly doing what I needed. I need a different "corners up" dial, that just dose the corners, lol.
All considered, far far far better then any of my pathetic attempts at a smile. :red:
Another good rule of thumb is, unless the mouth is really wide open, you should never see the bottom teeth. It always looks fake even when real people do it (try it in the mirror).
Whenever I tried a wide open smile, the 'V' happens, and then nothing else looks right, lol