Facial Animation For Games!

Quasar

How does it work these days? I haven't seen much discussion on the subject on the boards really. What exactly are the specs, number of bones, for a facial rig for, let's say the new Unreal Engine? I would imagine Epic uses a more complex facial rig then the one they have on UDN, or is it still similar? I guess the answer to my question is dependant on which game it is made for, but if I want to create a next gen character for my 'folio, what would you guys recommend for a facial rig bone count? Would anyone be kind enough to share some of their facial rig setup know how? There's always the option for using morph targets, but I know that system is more memory intensive and not used in too many games as far as I know. I'm just a little behind on the subject is all. Thanks

CheeseOnToast

Well, here's the blendshape list for the Source engine, which works along with their auto-lipsync stuff. No idea how other engines are handling it, but I wouldn't rule out morphing quite so quickly these days....

Quasar

Thanks for the link, Cheese, I've already read all that stuff though Now that I think about it, do companies care much for how a person poses a character's face for their portfolio? It just seems like morph targets are eisier to do since you just move the verts around, where as it takes more know-how to set up a facial rig with bones, and from what I can tell, most companies use bones. I know Epic uses OC3's FaceFX to create facial animation but there's not much info or pictures of the process, just general stuff. I see people discussing rigging arms, shoulders and every other part on these boards but not the head, and I think it's an important part of any character. So is there anyone here with experience rigging faces for current or next gen characters who could expand upon the details? Some of the stuff I'm interested in knowing is how many bones are actually used for a face in a game where you can get up close to a character, like say Mass Effect or a game where you can't, like Gears of War, and how are the bones distrubted in the face? Also, has anyone worked with FaceFX before? It seems to be used primarily with the Unreal 3 Engine, and what's the workflow like getting faces into it? I would appreciate any info on this stuff, or any links to info. Thanks!

animatr

We use bones at work. WE have a very nice face rig. check out Jason Osipa's book, stop staring as a good starting place. There are lots of books out there for creating face bone rigs. Another one i think is called character creation in maya. The modeling portion is ass,but the face rig is pretty nice.
Our engine has a bone limit per object, so for a head, we can have no more than 24 bones, so it breaks down 2 bones for each eye brow, a bone for each eye, a bone for the upper lid, and lower lid, 6 face bones, 2 cheek bones, jaw bone, 2 tongue bones, head, neck, 2 nose bones. and it really gets the job done. and honestly, it's way better than morph targets because morph targets move linearly from each morph where as bones rotate in arcs giving a much smoother motion.

If you take the time to learn how to build a good face rig, that in itself, will be an impressive portfolio piece.
Good luck!

Ikosan

Are these bone set ups created in Max or Maya? I'm working on a rig in Max but theres nothing stopping me from switching to Maya as at the moment but it seems theres much more resources availaible for Maya. Which is the industry standerd when it comes to rigging (be it face or anything)?

Eric Chadwick

No standard really AFAIK, though XSI generally wins in the animation dept. Maya and Max are more widely used by game developers, and they have similar rigging controls available in each, they're both fairly robust.

animatr

we use maya at work. I used to hate it because I was brought up on max, but I love maya now far more than max. I think max was just easier to learn for me. Maya is a lot more under the hood kind of stuff. But it really doesnt matter what program you use, whatever works for you and gets the job done I would think

Quasar

Thank you for the info animatr, I'll have a look at those books too!