Profile Picture

CC4 to Blender, cc_base_jawroot driver issue.

Posted By tegnemaskin Last Year
You don't have permission to rate!

CC4 to Blender, cc_base_jawroot driver issue.

Author
Message
tegnemaskin
tegnemaskin
Posted Last Year
View Quick Profile
Senior Member

Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)

Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Year
Posts: 18, Visits: 340

Hi all,
Maybe this is a long shot, but figured there might be a few Blender users in here.

I use the blender tools (CC/IC Pipeline). I have an issue with a driver that is attached to the cc_base_jawroot bone that drives the V_Open shape-key on the body mesh.
The driver is included on many avatars (not all) when exporting actorBuild or actorScan avatars from CC4.

My problem starts when exporting to .glb from Blender, and previewing in a gltf viewer.
The driver is triggered right from start, even when lip-syncs are not involved, like on idle motions. Looks bad.

In Blender, does anyone know how this driver can be triggered on certain actions, when the character is supposed to move its lips and jaw, and not on other actions like idles?

NOTE: Characters that don't have this driver work as expected, no problems, and the jaw root moves perfectly.

Appreciate any pointers, and thanks for your time.
All the best!

tegnemaskin
tegnemaskin
Posted Last Year
View Quick Profile
Senior Member

Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)

Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Year
Posts: 18, Visits: 340
Right, so answering my own post here:

It boils down to a puzzling thing about the way IC8/CC4 is solving the movement of the jaw root bone on many of these actor avatars.

Can't see any way to configure this while exporting from CC4.

The moving of the jaw root bone is not caused by the animation/motion itself (as it should be for a correct glb export), but the vertex animation (animated shape-key/morphs) is animating the jaw bone. Inverted, so to speak. This is the opposite of what is expected.

While this seems perfectly legit in an isolated case, e.g. when creating a sequence in Blender, but this method will break down, at some point, in the pipe-line. In this case, when exporting from Blender to .glb.

A solution to this is cumbersome if done manually in Blender, especially if there are many lip-syncs involved, so this, I think, should be delt with in IC8/CC4 prior to export to Blender. The lip-sync motions themselves should transform the jaw bone and not the blend shapes.

Maybe @victorsoupday could provide some more insight?
My 2 cents.
tegnemaskin
tegnemaskin
Posted Last Year
View Quick Profile
Senior Member

Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)Senior Member (348 reputation)

Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Year
Posts: 18, Visits: 340
I received a reply from Victor Soupday. He kindly provided an explanation and a solution. I'm adding it to the thread just in case others would stumble into the same issue.  

"The drivers aren't exported from CC4 or Blender, they are set up as part of the add-on [CC/iC Blender tools]. It sounds like they are overriding the jaw bone movements when Blender is exporting the animations.

The reason I had to do it like this is because iClone controls the jaw and the eyes from the facial expressions, but also, all the face capture tools (for Blender and iClone) record only the expression blend shapes and ignore face bones, even for eye movements. So people were getting confused why the Jaw or the eyes weren't moving...

But it's optional and you can disable this behaviour:
  • Go to CC/iC Pipeline Tab > Character Build Settings panel
  • Expand the Build Settings foldout
  • Uncheck all the driver options.
This will stop the shape key drivers getting set up when importing new characters.
Then press the Remove Drivers button to remove them from any existing characters."




Reading This Topic

0 active, 0 guests, 0 members, 0 anonymous.
No members currently viewing this topic!