facial animation (question)

I've been tyring to figure this out

The base models I use, they're faces are not rigged (the eyes are, so they can be moved, it has like 4 face bones)

I was looking into mo-cap for the face, so the facial motion is caught with the actor.

Can the facial mo-cap still be used on models with not facial rigging?

 

Yes. Use blend shapes. For example, Mixamo's FacePlus does this. If you follow that link, you can watch a video on how it's set up.

 

So, I do these blend shapes, and it can work with the facial mo-cap?

 

Yes. Mixamo did a tutorial on this:
[video=youtube_share;EL0_4oy3qcY]http://youtu.be/EL0_4oy3qcY

 

While I know Mixamo's facial system is for markerless use

I just had to make sure that blend shapes could also be used for mo-caping the face

 

FacePlus is mo-cap; it's markerless mo-cap. Blend shapes can also be used for traditional marker-based mo-cap. Either way, it depends on whether your mo-cap tool can do blend shapes.

 

how do you know if the mo-cap tool can use blend shapes?

 

Check the advertised specifications, or contact the maker.

 

and Unity should be able to handle the blend shapes/mo-cap data without an issues, correct?

 

Yes, as long as you're using Unity 4.3+ (for blend shape support) and export the animations in a format that Unity can import, such as FBX or DAE.

 

thanks for the help and answering my questions

 

Happy to help!

 

Sorry about this

But what is the best way to do blend shapes?

Like, in the video, I see them using the webcam method, but I was wondering if I could get someone to handcraft them (like the model I use, since the face isn't rigged, people handcraft facial expressions) I was wondering If I could do the same with Blend Shapes

 

Blend shapes are usually defined in 3D modeling and animation software such as MotionBuilder, ZBrush, or Maya like in the video I posted earlier. The webcam is used to generate animations that use blend shapes, not to generate blend shapes themselves.

 

VataRaven, Mixamo is running a free webinar in two days: Animating the Face of Your 3D Character with Face Plus.

This webinar will be led Dan Babcock, Mixamo's Senior Technical Director and he'll cover:

- A refresher on how to set up blendshapes on your own character
- How to set up Face Plus on your character in Unity
- Recording animation data onto your character
- Best practices on how to use the data in your game or film project

 

Hi VataRaven,

In your situation, you would be highly interested in this thread.

I have similar worries with you. I just downloaded their Free-version, and yes, 3D-face-animation can be done very quickly using this Unity plugin! The biggest benefit is that this software simply removes almost all of your worries. There is no need for rigging and blending-shapes, and you get all your work done within Unity.

It will upon you to decide if you still need mo-cap if the animation-part can be done so easily.