Capturing Facial Animation

Dave Williams
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:15 pm

Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by Dave Williams »

I had thought that Poser could import BVH files with relative ease. I would think that they only need to concentrate on the facial motion capture methods. But then I may be wrong. ;) I'm looking forward to more detailed hand capture.
Jim
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Location: Corvallis, Oregon
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Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by Jim »

Hello:

Yes, you can capture full body and display into MotionBuilder in realtime. You should also be able to drive facial points in MB in real time.

Yes, Poser does support BVH, but not very well, you can only import about a minute or so of data, longer captures cause lots of problems.
dtaylor112
Posts: 55
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:49 pm

Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by dtaylor112 »

Hey back to facial capture for a moment. Is there a graph anywhere detailing exactly HOW the cameras should be set up for facial capture? (I just got my 8 camera setup a few days ago but have yet to bust it open yet)

Should the model maybe sit on a stool and have all 8 cameras a couple of feet from their head going around the model 360 degrees? I'm not sure...
Jim
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Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by Jim »

Hello:

Just to clarify, we have not released any facial mocap software at this time. Arena will have an add-on for direct facial mocap support in the near future, or you can email us to become part of the advanced test group.

For desktop facial mocap, we have found that sitting on a stool is best, with around 6 cameras placed in front of the user, 3 low and 3 high, in a semi-circle type pattern. The cameras should be about 3 feet away from the users head.

Once the official product is out, we will have setup diagrams and all other needed support materials.
filmcraft
Posts: 57
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:53 am

Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by filmcraft »

Here is a sample of the tennis player BVH from the Optitrack website, used with a poser model at 25fps, no modifications done, straight import.

http://idisk.mac.com/beowulfkaine-Public?view=web
aforetaste
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2005 5:00 am

Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by aforetaste »

Sorry. Just to fully clarify...
Is it possible right now with a 8 camera set up (and Arena software) to capture a facial animation point-cloud and export that out to Motionbuilder to drive an actor's face?

What would the Arena expressions add?
VincentG
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Location: Corvallis, Oregon

Re: Capturing Facial Animation

Post by VincentG »

No, currently it is not possible to export a facial model directly to an application, like MB, and drive an actors face.

The Expression software will allow you to do that, when it is released.

http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/p ... xpression/
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