I've been busy with other things but am now back with a better machine and ready to figure this facial hair workaround until RL can give us more lip and facial bones to use.  I would like to see at least three upper lip bones that line up like a horseshoe around the mouth to attache mustache parts to.  I can live with the way that beards move with the chin but not being able to have a mustache move with the top lip is getting very frustrating. 

My first attempt this year was using the "Bone Facial Experiment" by  vidi and attaching the mustache to the upper lip bone, yes I said "upper Lip Bone"and moving it to line up with my CC character's face, it worked pretty well except when trying to use an idle motion, no matter how hard I tried the two characters just wouldn't stay in sync.  Unless someone can find a way to add a lip bone to a CC character this just isn't going to work for anything but a closeup quick shot where the character doesn't move.



My next attempt was using the "Toon Maker 2 Accessories Beard - Coronel" which isn't a beard but a spring mustache.  After experimenting with different facial bones to attach it to and playing around with the spring settings I settled on the CC_Base_Tongue01.  My attempts at changing the textures weren't so successful but it seems I'm getting closer to a workaround that will suffice. 




Dell XPS 8900, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3408 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), 16 GB RAM, - 4 GB GeForce GTX 745, NVIDIA compatible.
Acer Aspire V Nitro Laptop,  2.5GHz Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor with 6MB cache,  256GB solid state drive, 16GB Ram,  4 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics.

Well, I have my first try, it definitely works and with careful texturing and morphing of the mesh, I think it looks ok, I'll definitely improve this test, and it is already way better than not handling visemes. I loaded the stache texture in the Blend channel, please tell me if there is a better way. Anyhow, I'm satisfied, and hopefully a new hair system will come sooner or later in a 7 version or plugin. 




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

I have been trying to do the same thing with some of my Daz contents lol hair seems to work fine though! 



By the way I want to thank all of you for the great info that I have obtained from scouring the forum for the last 2 months!
Especially you Rampa!

Home built liquid cooled AMD Ryzen 7 1800X cpu (8 core 16 thread) 4.0GHz,  rtx 3090, ASUS Crosshair VI Hero motherboard, 64 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD (Samsung 850 EVO) 6 TB HD's 4K monitor.

                                                                                                                                  

The displacement cannot cross UV lines, or you get breaks. It is a PITA to do right close to the lips. We are a little bit stuck either way. :(

Delerna is right, displacement doesn't work well on the face. I've messed with the offsets etc and nothing gets good results for me. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

Oh wait, you are building the moustaches into the body morph! That's smart, I didn't consider doing that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

I am wondering what you mean by using morph sliders for this, I'm confused. Anyhow, I think a mixture of displacement to give texture and mesh to give shape is the best option for us at the moment. The main thing is semi-realistic movement with the mouth. Beards are so expressive so it really sucks that it is so hard to pull off. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

Hi Rampa.
Please don't take anything I say here the wrong way. I just thought I would add a few of my humble opinions (not aimed at anyone) about what I have discovered and my observations on the subjects here.
I do reasonably with what I do but I am a learner and not a super professional, so these are only my opinions that are based on how I work (which is all ways my own way and not necessarily the "Professional Way" LOL)
I do listen and learn from others but then I merge the bits that I think are good ideas into my own ideas and my own ways. 
Some might not agree with how I work but  I believe everyone should do things in whatever way it makes most sense to them and not necessarily the "Professional Way"

Anyway, back to why I'm posting this
I agree, displacement is indeed a fantastic feature in iClone but like everything there is always both good and bad.
I actually tried displacement mapping for this first off and the first image below shows part of the reason why I ended up choosing to go with morph sliders instead.
I realise I could have corrected a lot of that by using gradients on the edges but, for me, texturing is the most tedious thing about modelling, the weird thing about that is that texturing is the most important part of modelling. Also I love drawing with pencil and paper but on a computer, I find it tedious.
On top of that, the second image is a completely naked Gwynn with nothing but displacement mapping and texturing to turn her into Wonder Gwynn.
Displacement mapping is pretty impressive but if you look closely at the edges, particularly the red square on the arm. I find that unless there is a mesh edge that completely follows where you need a displacement edge it is extremely difficult to get that edge to go straight and smooth.

So in summary, displacement mapping is indeed a valid option but for me it would take too much effort with the texturing and I much prefer modifying the mesh instead. Also the morph sliders makes it easy to control the size of the moustache and the beard. And finally, the most of the morph sliders effects could also be done with displacement but we wouldn't get the easy control like we do with the morphs. So that's why "I" chose morph sliders






i7-3770 3.4GHz CPU 16 GB Ram   
GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
Windows 10 Pro 64bit

You can also do it with displacement. Make your texture map black except where you want it bulging out. If you use displacement, you can benefit from a 10 times higher resolution to work with.

Sure. customised morph sliders

i7-3770 3.4GHz CPU 16 GB Ram   
GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
Windows 10 Pro 64bit