FaceFX FIXED. Let me know what you think. See Last Post

[Zahadam]

I have got my model into udk using the slade bones. So far I have almost everything working properly except the mouth movements.
I seem that the mouth movements are reversed. I've tried reversing the local rotation axis on my bones but no luck
test1.jpg
I've tried to adjust the fave graph nodes to negative numbers like :mouth_open min:0 max:1 to min:0 max:-1 and again no luck.
Anyone having the same issue????
Note i tried this with the default slade mesh and bones and the same thing happens.
eyes and head rolls seem to work corrctly but the mouth gestures seem to be reversed. PLEASE HELP.

[Zahadam]

still no luck getting the mouth open to work properly.
I looked into the batch render txt file to make sure the open gesture was set to the right key frame and it was which is 10. Then I tried binding the mesh with the mouth open and no luck.
Most other gestures in the face graph seem to work correctly. The "open" and the "W" gestures are having issues.
I tried creating a new package and importing the default slade mesh and bones. And I'm having the same issue.
So it NOT the the local rotation axis.
Its NOT different bone names or rotation.
Its NOT a faulty key frame or bone pose or reference pose.
ITS DEFINITELY NOT a mesh skinning or weights issue
It CANT be adjusted in the FaceFX editor both in UDK and stand alone.
Its NOT an attribute that can be adjusted in the face graph or phoneme mapping.

EYES WORK
BROWS WORK
LIDS WORK
CHEEKS WORK
TEETH & TONGUE WORK
NOSTRILS WORK

"ShCh" LOOK DECENT
"FV" LOOK OK
"P,b,m" LOOK PASSABLE

"open" OUT TO LUNCH

"W" WTF IS THIS


anyone got any ideas?

[Zahadam]

Still no luck
I have imported everything raw, and followed the tutorial twice. I tried re-baking the animation to the bones.
I even made my own separate open pose in a different key frame and still no luck.
fx1.jpg
fx2.jpg
fx3.jpg
fx4.jpg

I examined the local rotation axis in maya vs. udk It seem the udk by default orients the joints to where it wants them. BUT it WONT explain why the EYES work fine.
fx5.jpg

I found that no matter what LRA's you export UDK changes them on import to what you see above.

What is going wrong?.
Is there something hard coded into faceFX....Apparently with UDK its fully licensed.

[Zahadam]

Ok so.
Restarted the Slade file from scratch. This time I did NOT delete the non-deformer history before exporting from maya to FBX. I Change the node reference key for "open". Default Key frame was 10 I used 680. Then before going into UDK's FaceFX I used the stand alone version to tweak the face graph and exported a template from there. Then in UDK I simply created a face FX asset for slade, opened it and synced it to the template.

WORKED FINE.
fx6.jpg

Now I WANT TO SCALE THE BONES TO FIT UDK MALE BODY
So I have accomplished this BUT.
The original Slade file has 970 key frames of animation.
Everything I do to duplicate the file screws up the keyframe count.
If I import it into another scene i got 700 or so key frames instead of 970 ???

What I now have done is scaled those bones to fit my model which is skinned to the basic male UDK skeleton. And BN_Root is now parented to b_root's hierarchy. I have the animation successfully scaled down as well.
My model is skinned and working fine in maya.
I re-wrote the batch-render file to match the node posed to the proper key frames eg: Origional "open" was key 10, while My "open" was key 6.
I exported the file to FXA using the maya plug in. Opened it in the face FX stand alone file to tweak the face graph and mapping, exported the template & .xml actor.
So by all means this should work. BUT NO!!!!!!!

[Zahadam]

Well folks after allot of head bashing I have figured it out.
Here are some tips but I'm hoping to release some content for you guys
Make sure there are no transform nodes in you bone hierarchy.
Don't scale or move bones when there are key frames.
I built my own bone structure based on slades bones and baked some of slades animations onto my skeleton. using locators and constraints.
I delete the constraint nodes after baking animations.
I re-wrote the batch-export file to sync up my my animations.
The original tutorial tells you to right click on your face fx assest in udk and import .fxa. which i still did, but to activate the nodes I opened the .fxa(created with maya pluging) in faceFX studio FREE version and exported an .XML actor. Then in UDK I imported that XML actor in UDK faceFX. Works fine.
Heres a YOUTUBE link to watch a demo



Mesh Notes
Face is using sub-surface scattering.
Hair is sculpted mesh. Going to replace with alpha blended hair soon.
Skeletal structure is face bones attached to udk base skeleton to use all base anims and have faceFX enabled

mal_test2.jpg

[Zahadam]

Hey guys, I'm back and this time I hope you all tell me what you think.
After working with faceFX for the first time I have realized its great potential. I started a new character from scratch. Bones and all. and I used constraints in maya to transfer the animation from slade to my face skeleton. I tweaked the key frames to what I needed, I read up on the face graph to get a better understanding.
I also tried animated normal maps for the first time. So I hope you let me know what you think.

Notes on the character:
-modeled after adeli niska from the TV series firefly
-Face is using sub-surface scattering
-I only made 1 animated normal map and that is the angry face
-I have yet to add body and hand movements to the face graph set up.
-Just under 8000 triangles
-body and face maps are 1024x1024 hair map is 512x512

Here are some pics. Vid coming soon.

Face close up
niska_1.jpg

Angry face with animated normals
niska_anim_nm.jpg

Material Set-up low quality sorry.
niska_mat.jpg

Basic preview
niska.jpg

Wireframe
niska_wire.jpg

[Zahadam]

Here's a quick demo.