I am trying to create facial animations for psychology experiments using faceshift and the xbox kinect sensor. Can anyone help me add the .bvh files onto a plain standard average face model?
I really only need a demonstration on how to do one, then I can do the rest myself. I’m not a pro animator so this stuff is seriously hard for me.
I can provide the .bvh file and the model, I just need someone to do a tutorial on how to apply it and get it moving. I’ve had no luck. You will be credited and acknowledged in the write up of how I developed the animations.
Modeling a head is the most difficult thing because any milimeter change you do the face look change. You can go easily of woman looking to man looking.
So if it is just a nightmare to do one face, imagine doing an animation of one face…
You could watch some blender cookie face rig animation they have. Then import your bvh and make a window in blender where it shows and then try to move your bones to match what you see. This is the easy way without having also to study drivers and python. An even better way would be to create a wire mesh (just vertices and lines, no faces) matching the bvh first position. Then add a shape key and store there another shape of the bvh movement. You end with this line mesh with all the main movements. Then you can move this line mesh and scale it down and rotate to place on your face mesh and you parent to the main bone of the head. Then put this line mesh to xray to be always above and visible and then is just moving the bones in your face to match the positions you see.
It is a lot of work, but you will end knowing so much more.
Start watching that face rig video in blender cookie (it has 4 parts or so If I remember well).
Thanks for the advice. I previously was doing everything manually - so I was setting up shape keys, drivers, and parenting rigs etc but it was just too difficult and the finished products were not very realistic. Thats why I’m using faceshift but I’m just lost on what to do with the data. Grrrrr!
If I was to import the .bvh file into blender, would I need any other parameters set up? I’m so confused and so not good with this stuff.
^try searching for a rigged face model on blendswap. you may find one. even if its not detailed enough, you can add detail on it, will be a good start, will save time.