Over the last few months I’ve been developing a collection of python scripts and assets for doing facial motion capture via point tracking. It has been dubbed “Monet” (mo’nèe), short for: motion tracking network. The system is designed to use only one camera, and there are scripts for both the conversion of images into actions, and cleanup/animation work.
I’ve written this for Blender 2.49, and it requires both Python and the Python Image Library installed to work. The system was developed for use in an animated television series that I’m working on. It’s designed to be fast - and it’s best if you have access to a video editing suite to process the footage before entering it into the scripts.
It was by spurring from a friend that I finally decided to take the time and get this system out there so that other people may use it. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, it’s GNU free and always will be.
Before asking any questions please read the manual - there’s a heap of stuff wound into this system, and it was designed for functionality not ease of use. I apologise for this, and hope that everything has been suitably explained.
Any comments or suggestions are always welcome! Enjoy, and I hope the community finds my work useful.
@tin2tin: I was reading about that and would actually be more pleased if the tracking was better than my scruffy attempt. A native module would be much faster and yeild better results. If anything, perhaps this will get the ball rolling!
@bat3a: It’s a future possibility, but I just don’t have the time. We are focused on fast production and am very weary of the “red-line”, it’s just as easy to use an older version and append the animations into whatever version we’re working on. That’s really the only reason why the system hasn’t been stepped up. In saying that, I’m sure there’s probably only a few commands than need changed or reformatted.
Oh wow, this facial tracking is superb! And even better that it uses OpenCV - has anybody contacted the various tracking-related branch people with this? I can imagine this being used not just for detailed facial expressions for characters, but also that really cool “Johnny Lee” style navigation for the 3DView and game engine! Or you could combine both into a “crazy mirror” effect where you can have someone else’s face overlayed onto your own. There is a lot of potential in this which should not be ignored!
Incredible! I mean really incredible! The level of tracking is fantastic. I really hope that someone smart can get that into blender (under the GNU not just research liscence), but gawd that’s good!
Do you mean Monet or the kind of facial animation that’s in the links? I really wish someone smarter than me would put that sort of support in with Blender as it’d save me so much time in my day! As for Monet, I’m tied up with the real-life stuff at the moment, but I’d be inclined to put money down that the next blender-tracking system might inclue facial animation!
