Lee Adams - Character Study - Animated

Hows it going everyone, I was going to post this earlier in the month but I didnt know 

whether I could get it all done in time, since i'm posting this, i'm happy to say, that 

the project is now complete, and I can now present you with my animated character entry, with not a moment to spare haha

I have gone all out as this is a culmination of everything I have been learning in Unreal, 

character creator, iclone, 3dxchange, marvellous designer, substance painter, wrap3 and blender, 

as I build towards the ultimate goal of making movies with Unreal Engine and Reallusion software suite, 

this is my attempt to leap over the uncanny valley (not leapt over it yet, fell like i fell in though haha)

I hope the character doesn't look odd in anyway, as this is myself haha here is a breakdown of 

how to achieve results like these:

I will break it on down into the catagories below...

Iclone, Character creator, 3dxchange, Unreal and the process that was undertook

Character Creator:

Every character starts here, using the amazing CC3+ topology and the plethora of morphs you can create your character however you like, on this occasion i started with Headshot pro, enter a picture of my face and there you go, instant avatar, from there its off to blender for some further refinements, then exported to Wrap3 (amazing software for err...wrapping) this allows you to precisely match the CC Avatar to your 3D scan meshes, it was quite a process and unfortunately none no expressions were shown in my entry, as they are just not quite ready, I will finish these though and show you just how amazing and closely you can match Character Creator avater your own likeness)

Iclone:

Iclone is truely amazing and integral part of my workflow, it goes as follows...

once i have my character ready i hit "one click export to Iclone* and bam, theres my avatar, ready to be animated in any way i choose :)

next up is recording my body animation using "vive mocap kit" in unreal engine, but allows you to track vive trackers and controllers to track body movement, and once set up correctly, the movement is impressive to say the least (not as good as iclones supported motion capture devices though) but its a close second :) providing you have a great many vive trackers, i have 8 for body 2 x feet 1 x Torso 1x Chest 2 x Shoulder, 2 x controllers for hands, and helmet for head movement)

after i have recorded this in unreal engine, i send this to 3dxchange, the awesome intermediatery between unreal and iclone, i send my mocap data (tracked to unreal mannequin) then apply to iclone, that easy...

***Cough Cough *** any chance for Vive tracker plugin support as a native iclone motion capture device ***Cough Cough***

I can see real live feedback of my animation, back in unreal engine, in my set up scene, instantly, as Unreal Live Link Plugin works like a charm, and honestly i love it, it revolutionised the capture process for me

***I would just like to say a great BIG Thanks to Reallusion made this plugin FREE to access for indie devs which i took great advantage of***

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3D Scanning and photo capture:

I 3d scanned all expressions and (am going to) replace all morph targets for face with 3dxchange

I scanned all of the facs based morph targets in aberrance with the cc morphs, its going to be amazing when its running I'm very excited

unfortunately i didnt get time to hook all of this up, but will be added in next week or so

Wrap3 for morph targets for the face 

Next to get the base mesh i took many, many many photos of my face, as closely and as in focus as possible, with the iphone xs max, the details is rather stunning, im not sure it could meet texturingxyzs standard but its a close second

i then took this into blender and projection painted all the detail i could get, and there was a lot of detail, more than i expected or even wanted haha

then took this into cc and into skin gen to build the rest of the maps based on my lovely new diffuse

Wrinkle and bloodflow maps will be built with skingen

correctly added facial movement, wrinkle on forehead etc

Masks made with Gimp 

can find this in the Digital Human example for animating wrinkle maps and blood flow

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Added Morphs :

Ear Stretch (for when eyebrows move)

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animation:

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Using ViveMocapKit and a great many Vive trackers for motion capture in unreal, exported 

to 3dxchange, sent to iClone, cleaned up and added to with live feed back using Unreal Livelink

iPhone LiveFace for facial animation

leap motion for intricate finger mocap

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Strand Based Hairs will be added in next iteration

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Outfit: (didnt get around to completing this, but will add in next few days)

Marvellous Designer 6.5 Steam

Outfit design : I decided to go with a suit as i wanted to dress dapper for the occasion

import iclone cleaned motion capture data captured from livelink for dynamic cloth simulation

export back to unreal engine and line up in sequencer

Export to substance painter

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Accessories:

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Glasses (with facial driven morphs) **almost completed**

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I hope you enjoyed the entry and the results, reallusion software is truly instrumental in this pipeline, and when combined with Unreal Engine, the story telling possibilities are endless.

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Here is a breakdown of the hardware and software I have purchased and learnt over the past few years:

Hardware :

2x Asus MX279h

RTX 2070

Intel i5-9600kf

32gb DDR4 3200mhz

Leap Motion

Iphone XS Max

Photography lights

HTC Vive

10x vive trackers

unreal engine plugin *vive mocap kit*