Thanks for the helpful explanation animagic.

I'm still trying to translate common blend shape terms to iclone.... So basically, if I import a custom character I will only get

-standard head jaw eyes lips movement
-limited move-able muscle zone
-limited to 6 custom expressions (!)

The last one is problematic if it's true... I have purchased and custom made hundreds of daz model expressions!

The process of importing external OBJ or FBX blend shapes is standard enough. But where do the imported 3dexchange face expressions sliders go in iclone? I googled it everywhere but still can't any info on how to load 3dex imported custom genesis face expression as 'poses' into iclone....

Even if I could get more than 6 custom expressions into iclone 6, I still wouldn't want to set up puppeteer for all 350 of them!

Nevermind iclone 5 or 3dex 5, most importantly will iclone 6 have blend shape or at the least have face morph sliders or expression poses?

Thanks for any guidance....

Right now, Visemes are the only category with sliders, so right now you can not map other custom blend shapes in a one-to-one fashion.

I don't know what options there will be in 3DXchange 6.

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It would seem that is the case, but if the bones of the tongue are mapped to the Jaw, they also can be edited as part of the Viseme blending inside 3dXchange5. If the nose had bones and you wanted to add that as part of the Jaw, it could be blended also. Any part that is not used otherwise in the base configuration could be used as long as it is weighted.

The issue is that once done, it does not always remember the settings for the bones positions for later use, but remembers the morphs applied by key sliders. It can be reused for the exact same character, but not for another with the same bone set because of the bone edits, so editing of the bones will have to be done again.

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Thanks for the info. Iclone has really original ways of animating motions from the neck down. But the facial animation side, especially emotional variety it is grossly under-developed compared to others.

The 'fix' using bones and 3dex is clever but too much work for one very basic animation step. In carrara or blender or max or maya, if I need a face emotion and can't get it out of my hundred morph sliders, I just move the face directly on the mesh in one click.

Blend shape is standard face anim, 6 custom canned face emotion template is big problem, no direct morphing on mesh makes it a bigger problem, no way to save reusable emotions from iclone....wow. This kind of 'lack' reminds me that iclone is made for consumers....

But iclone looks like it is taking anim seriously. I hope they will will blend shapes (sliders, double click to load poses, or as additional custom puppeteer preset) to future updates. I'll keep track on 3dex6 development. Thanks again.....

Thanks to your blurb, Animagic, I was able to get this to work.  I won't win any prizes for finesse, but without your help I would have been SOL.

Hats off.

................................


"Less clicks good, more clicks bad."

Thanks for reporting back. I'm glad it helped!

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OK, I've been fooling with animating the tongue for a couple of days, and I've made some progress.  Now I'm seeing something I don't want, but I don't know how to stop it.
The (6) 3DX_Custom buttons in the iClone 6 Face Puppet all have default head and eye motions built into them.  How to turn these off?  If I deselect the unwanted features in the Solo Feature Selection panel, the custom button itself is deselected.  Reselect the custom button, and the unwanted Solo features return.  This happens even when there are no custom actions associated with a button, so I am thinking this is associated with iClone, rather than 3DX.  I understand it may be impossible to turn these motions off, but it never hurts to ask.  :-)  Thanks...



"Less clicks good, more clicks bad."

That is indeed bizarre and confusing. What happens (or should happen) is that the custom feature is still selected after the others are deselected. It's just not indicated.

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Yes it is.  No matter how I go about it, clearing the unwanted motions from the MODIFY | ANIMATION | MOTION | FACE PUPPET | 3DX_Custom | Solo Features Selection panel disables the Preview/Record buttons of the selected control.

Today I'm going to try one more thing.  The iClone EDIT | FACIAL FEATURES panel does a nice job of moving the tongue without introducing unwanted head and eye movements.  I'm wondering what would happen if I saved a single frame of this effect as a motion clip, then called it into a clean timeline somewhere downstream.  Would this become an animation?  If not, I may have to give up getting Chuck to eat.  Your comment is invited.



"Less clicks good, more clicks bad."

I know that MotionPlus saves facial animation (it's a Collect Clip option), so you could try if just saving a snippet at the point where the tongue is where you want it would work. I have never tried using it that way, but it may be worth a shot.

EDIT: See my next post for a far easier solution.

I haven't used Custom morphs in the Facial Puppet in IC6, so I would have to check. It worked in IC5, that when deselecting the unwanted features, the custom one would still work even though it wasn't indicated. If it doesn't work like that in IC6 it's definitely a bug rather than an annoyance.

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