Hello,I do not know if you could help me ...I am a stage director for an exploration project in partnership with the University of Montreal. I am looking for a 3D artist who would be able, by the software iClone / Caracter Creato, to create 3 or 4 characters to facilitate their integration in Live Face app (to make facial mocap via an iphone X).The characters I'm looking for are copies of real politicians (George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Dominique De Villepin). I'm not necessarily looking for photo quality rendering, but I would like to have a 3D avatar that could look like the rendering shown in the following demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89dW2LFR07I&t=57sJe&fbclid=IwAR0Es13nRLYdmKz9f1yo5 -cfgUU-DAizMdAgoc44utQoAUqRWGBhOxAMiXM - or at least we can easily recognize the said character. I only need the face or bust.Since this is an exploration project, we have a very small budget. I would like to know how much the costs could be for such a project.Thank you.Germain itregermain.pitre@gmail.com">Pitregermain.pitre@gmail.com

You say "not photo quality" but then show off a video which has, indeed, photo quality.

If you want a caricature, then I would say you could easily do this yourself using a wide variety of tools (I prefer Headshop in Daz, but CrazyTalk 8 Pipeline or FaceGen would also do the trick).  You won't get something that would fool anyone into thinking it was actually that person, but more a "tribute" to them (the way Alex Baldwin does his Trump imitation).

And far more than the face the hair will be critical for the look -- so someone needs to either be skilled in creating such hair or you will have to find it somewhere in Daz or the Reallusion stores.

Here's something I did in a few minutes (the hair is definitely not right, but it was the closest I could find in a minute or two):

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Hi!
Thank you for your reply.

I didn't search something to fool anyone - I want than we can recognize who it is.

So you're looking for animation as well?  Because that character I created will already work in Live Face for someone else to control via their face movements.

It's a steep road and probably too expensive but there are some folks who do work here for theater so perhaps one of them will answer you (or already has).  Do you have a specific script you are looking for these avatars to say?  And do you have voice talent to impersonate the voices?

See -- if you are looking for the entire package (someone to do the voices AND do the animation AND do the work necessary to get them to look right) we're not talking cheap.  I'm retired (so I don't work for anyone :> but anyone would be a fool not to charge you at least $20 an hour and this could take many, many hours of work. Hundreds of hours again, depending on what you are talking about in terms of the scope of the project. 

It's a lot of different pieces -- but perhaps you can outline exactly what you want and someone can contract for a piece or two of the project (just getting someone to do decent voice work for those folks you mention ought to cost no less than a thousand or two, depending on how long they had to read.  I'm a pretty good voice artist and I doubt whether I could do all of them -- maybe one or two, but there's at least one on there I don't recognize and would have to research).  If your actors could do the voices and then you supply them to your animator you will save a lot of both time and money  -- but do you need the body to move or is this just facial animation?

In any case, I've at least given you some things to think about.  We always use to write on the blackboard for all our customers -- "Good, fast, cheap" and tell them to pick any two.  I suspect you will have to do the same thing.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Thanks for your reply.

I'll precise my request.
I want to use a live facial motion capture with an 3d head avatar. 
I don't want to add some voice over. I'll use the facial mocap in live during the show. An actor will interprete the caracter and we'll project in video the facial motion capture in live.
So, I need few head caracters in 3D for use in live mocap. But, I don't have any skills in 3d and animation. 

Okay, then it sounds like what you need is performance ready hardware, in order to animate the characters someone else will create for you.  The face I created can already be animated with Live Face but now you need to be able to do that.

That hardware WILL be expensive, no two ways around it.  If you only want the heads to move and talk you can get away with a system like iClone with the Live system (the main system and the Face Live for iPhone part).  That's the software and you can look up the latest prices (I think you can get what you need for less than $500 there but I haven't looked recently).  Then you'll need an iPhone X/Xr/Xs for each actor you want animating at the same time.  The Xr right now is going for around $500 a pop, so just multiple your actors (that have to be on together) by that number.

If you want the actors to also move, you'll need mocap suits or controllers of some sort.  ALL sorts of ways to do that, but typically you would get something like a Perception Neuron suit for each performer, at around $2K per suit (with another $500 for the software -- luckily you only need to pay for the software once).

So if you need face and body movements for all four actors at the same time, the minimum software and hardware costs (not counting the actual computer and system to display this wherever you have in mind) will be around $13K (but I would budget at least $15K for it -- you always end up spending more than you think).  If you can get by with only "talking heads" (literally) then you could do all four on stage for around $2.5K.  If you only need one at a time you could do the Face only part for around $1K (not counting iClone, though) and the Face and Body for around $3.5K.

The *least* expensive part will be getting someone to model the faces for you -- if you are happy enough with what I did, for example, I would do all four in an afternoon for not more than $300 (including clothes, of course).  You shouldn't have to spend more than $500 for that, though.

So it sounds like the first thing you need isn't a 3D artist, but someone on-site who understand the 3D hardware and software needed to run such a performance system (assuming you have the funds).  Most tech folks are capable or at least capable of learning, but give EVERYONE (both your performers and the at least two or three folks you want running the system live) time enough to learn the system totally apart from the acting rehearsal.  Think of your tech rehearsal as being *nearly* as important as the time you normally spend rehearsing and blocking just lines -- so if you would rehearse that for four to six weeks, I would not in any way spend less than two or three weeks AFTER you have your regular rehearsals at running the tech.

If you have the funds, I sure wish I was in your area -- not that I would work for you (as I said, I'm retired) but I would certainly volunteer to help just to see such a performance possible.  I think it is -- but I also think there will be a TON of issues you will have to work out.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley