So if I understand correctly, the ArtKit system with LiveFace is less good for lack of control points than the metahuman animator?

I'm assuming Meta Human Animator facial mocap is superior to iClone? That's why you guys are working on this workflow? I just bought iclone, motionlive/ LiveFace, and wrinkles for a client project. The acculips is a pretty cool base to do facial mocap on top of. But it still needs more smoothing and complexity, because it can look really robotic.. The project I'm working on has a lot of fast talking.

I guess a drawback of MetaHuman would be that you aren't supposed to render them outside of Unreal. But I've had trouble getting iclone animations and wrinkles to transfer to a third party program, Cinema 4d. So I would say iClone isn't much better that MetaHuman as far as compatibility with other software.

Thanks for any insights, I'm super new to iClone and facial mocap

The Acculips is only for accurate english lipsync. It's not for emotional expressions. You must create it  (puppet or facial mocap)

Thanks for that. Just to clarify, when II say stylized, I mean humanoids like below which I’m working on with wrap and HS2: these are models from talented sculptor Matker Malitsky.



Garry, Clearstream, Seven_of_one

My Pinterests

@Garry Oh ok, interesting. I’d love to know more about your process, do you have a blog or YouTube I can check out? Sorry if I’ve already asked that or have already seen them. I’m a very visual person and sometimes I forget who is who on this darn forum, because there aren’t faces :)



@Yo Dojo Well, the MetaHuman Animator isn’t really “superior” to iClone - it’s just another tool to add. The whole MHA process is very cumbersome. IClone’s motion live and acculips system is amazing because it’s so so fast, and acculips is fantastic results for American-accented English speakers. If it’s looking robotic, I’d definitely say you should try adjusting the lip settings on the clip - I find ‘fast talking’ works great, or other ones, depending on speaker. Also, iClone 8 characters - with CC4 EXTENDED facial profile - have amazing expressions, just as good as MetaHuman in my opinion. So there’s a lot of advantages in staying with iClone/CC stuff. And yes, Epic is very strict about MetaHuman Animator being Unreal-rendered only, which is a massive drawback for many people because it’s much easier to get fast awesome results directly out of iClone or with the USD export to Omniverse. MHA is just another tool, and has drawbacks yep! Also keep in mind, lots of people have actually made great character animation short film/film/tv stuff with iClone/cc without unreal. It’s a proven, fantastic system. Anything with iClone + unreal is really just a test at this stage , in terms of professional level character animation. Just my opinion! :) so far, all finished professional-standard work with MetaHumans has used Maya. I’m a Maya guy and it is incredibly time consuming and you need a big team. IClone can be done by individuals; and it’s awesome :)



@mtakerkart Yes, ARKIT is inferior to MetaHuman Animator, because of the number of control points etc. Here’s a more detailed answer if it helps: It’s also about how they work, fundamentally - arkit is just looking at the iPhone’s camera and depth data in order to drive 52 blendshapes. MHA uses a “4d solve”, which means it uses the depth data from iPhone/stereoHMC to to recreate your entire facial mesh (ie: it’s like unlimited Blendshapes). At the moment, it then maps that down to the current MetaHuman Face ControlRig data (200+ controls). But in the future even the MetaHuman’s face rig will probably get better/bigger (400+), and the MetaHuman Animator process will still be effective.


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virtualfilmer.com | youtube

Very promising. Go ahead Toby, we trust in you :) and I like your female voice :D




     

😂 AMAZING, charly!

I didn’t think that little test recording would ever be public hahah. I’ll have to record some better ones :)



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virtualfilmer.com | youtube

By the way, for anyone browsing this thread, just to clarify:

The video charly made was using a very early beta of my new plugin. The lips still aren’t correct - I have a list of many things to do.

And this is just arkit, fyi. Charly made it using the little test recording from “LiveLink Face” app - set to arkit mode, NOT metahuman animator - that I include as part of test animations in the beta.

He has imported it into iClone using the plugin. So this is one of the first facial animation import examples EVER TO BE DONE with iClone. Congratulations charly!! :)

FYI everyone, you can download the free beta plugin now; at https://virtualfilmer.com

The plugin, even when released, will be completely free and open source. :)

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virtualfilmer.com | youtube

@Rosuckmedia - don’t forget to make the “sound” subtrack visible for your character, then click drag it 15 frames to the right!

Every livelink face arkit audio recording with the app is 15 frames out of sync for some reason. But it’s easily fixed :)

And I’m using an iPhone 14 Pro Max mostly. I have a few different phones but that’s my primary one.

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virtualfilmer.com | youtube