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Yep, these match the bones in the rig.
I see that the main confusion as to what the Face Controls tool does has to do with specific terminology not everyone is familiar with. We have:
FACS = Facial Actions Coding System, a scientific approach to understanding the face
facial action = facial movement = the kinesiological movements the human face makes
facial expression = a combination of several facial actions to denote emotion such as anger, happiness, suprise, etc
facial rig = the totality of the the bones (joints) found in head area of a rigged 3D model, with each bone influencing certain vertices of the face mesh
facial control rig = a GUI that helps the user control certain bones, in this case the face bones which are by default not directly selectable in the viewport
Both the Power Pose and the Genesis Face Controls are facial control rigs. Both make use of the Genesis figure's facial rig.
The Power Pose controls individual facial bones.
The Genesis Face Controls has 100+ hidden FACS-based parameters which the user manipulates by translating/rotating the arrows and circles (which are independent bones from the Genesis figure). These FACS-based parameters represent the facial actions, with each making use of dozens of facial bones at once. Therefore there are no morphs in the Genesis Face Controls tool. Expressions can be saved as pose-presets. The item comes with 50 pre-made expressions, i.e. 50 facial poses.
The Genesis Face Controls can be used in tandem with any expression pack out there. It can also be used on any character previously created and with custom expressions. It can be parented to any body part and it can be positioned wherever in the scene. The color of the controls can be changed to anything from the Surfaces tab. When you render make sure to turn the visbility off for the tool otherwise it will show up in the render.
Expressions are universal and all of them have been studied and mapped. I do not recommend memorizing the facial actions which define each expression but instead use a reference image to guide your use of the Genesis Face Controls tool.
Hope this helps. If there are any more questions please ask away.
Could the interface be placed in a panel like Powerpose so it can be manipulated there rather than directly in the viewport, or is that not possible due to the manipulation method?
Yes it can but I didn't add that feature in. The reason is that Power Pose does not record values or show which controller was modified. The nodes in Power Pose all remain static. Another setback is that the Power Pose layout would not be intuitive because all node points look the same. The arrows show in which direction you need to translate the controller, and the circle controllers can be manipulated both translation-wise and rotation wise. Adding all of these controlls to Power Pose would mean adding almost 100 node points making the whole layout confusing even for me.
A couple of questions after having bought and installed this:
1.) Where is the manual? Clicking on the document link in DIM sends you to a 404 error page for the product listing.
2.) How does one manipulate the hovering overlay panel controls? I've tried using the selector, the universal tool, etc and while I can select the overlay parts, moving my mouse or click+hold the mouse button does nothing.
3.) This overlay panel's usefulness is _EXTREMELY_ limited by the fact that it does not move with the head's location. The second you pose the figure in any pose that's not the A pose the overlay panel is hovering where the face should be if the body was in the A pose.
4.) Editing to add this point, also it's pointless if you morph the body and the morph changes the height of the figure and the overlay panel doesn't track the head/face's location. Otherwise the overlay panel will end up buried inside the person's torso.
No one makes a facial expression before morphing both the figure and posing the figure.
Not trying to be overly critical as I applaude you for what you're maing and what it adds to the Daz universe, but w/o any proper manual or tutorial and an overlay panel that doesn't follow the face location this product is a bit buggy right out the gate.
Also second SnowSultan's request for powerpose like panel.
That makes sense, thanks for explaining. Meener's point about the panel not being parented to the head worries me though, I assumed it would be. Can this be remedied?
The overlay parts use X/Y/Z, and some of them only move in specific directions according to the parameters (these tend to be marked with arrows).So if you grab the eyebrow closest to the bridge of the nose, you can translate Y or X, for example. If you have "show hidden properties" active under Parameters you can also dial them in.
It works no matter where the overlay is, as far as I can tell. I don't think it loads automatically parented to the head, probably to make it easier to find in the scene tab.
@Faux2D If you ever release a standalone pack of face movement/speaking animations I would pick those up in a heartbeat. The one that includes head movement (I think it's example 2?) is especially awesome.
Use the Universal Tool. Do not click and drag, just click then the translate arrows of the Universal Tool. Some controls also have rotation.
If you want to make it move with the head you need to parent it to the head. Like I previously stated: it can be parented anywhere and moved anywhere. Morphing the character is irrelevant to the functionality of the tool.
I'll be posting a tutorial soon.
Here is a tutorial I've made which goes through the controls of the Face Controls tool:
Thanks again for the explanations. I don't own it yet, so I wasn't sure if it could be parented. Will watch the video shortly, much appreciated.
I think if you select the head then load the tool it parents it automatically. If not just drag and drop the tool on the head joint in the Scene tab.
There should be a pdf file in the Genesis Face Controls location. If you open it there are 3 YT links with timestamps. They have the audio which accompany the facial animations. With the new Filament renderer you can quickly render out the provided mocap animations and then synch them up with the audio in a video editor tool.
Thank you for that tip about parenting to the head. That definitely helped.
I do have a follow-up question. Was this tested in the beta, because I'm finding that it doesn't not work fully in the current beta versus general relase. I have the current beta and so far for every movement part I only have a z and y axis translation arrow, the x arrow does not appear. It ends with the scale dot.
I'm currently using 4.12.0.86 for the general release (which is older) and the 4.14.0.8 for the beta, and it works perfectly in general, but not in the beta.
Also, you may want to update it so the default value is "Visible in Render: off", it defaults to "On" and thus shows up in your render.
Oh interesting, thanks for that info! I missed that there was a PDF. I probably won't use audio with these, but I love being able to pull single frames from the timeline to use as expressions. :D
That's interesting.
I created it with the 4.12 version so there's a small chance the 4.14 Beta version might have some issues. I haven't installed 4.14 yet so I can't say for certain.
Try selecting a controller where the Universal Tool ends with a scale dot on the X axis. Then go to the parameters tab. Go to the drop-down menu (the icon with those 4 horizontal lines) then go to Preferences -> Show hidden properties. Under General, you should have sliders for XYZ translate, XYZ rotate, Scale, and XYZ scale. Is the X translate slider any different from all the others? If its text is faded then that means it's hidden for some reason. If this is the case go to the Properties menu of the X translate parameter (the little cog wheel), then go to Hide -> Unhide.
I know that if you hide the XYZ scale parameters the scale dot also disappears from the Universal Tool. For the 4.12 if I hide the translate parameters the arrows do not disappear. This is just a guess but I think that in version 4.14 the arrows disappear as well if you hide them. As to why they were hidden (if they were) I don't know. What was the parameter that had the issue?
No dice. I unhid everything. The paremeter itself in the parameter tab is showing fine, just not the arrow.
Though now I'm thinking I may have just found a bug in the Daz beta. I don't normally use the universal tool and use the independent translate and rotate tool so I may not have ever seen this. But selecting other bones on g8m itself is not showing me the X translate arrow.
Could someone else confirm this?
So it happens on all bones? If that's the case select Universal Tool then go to Tool Properties. There's a chance the X axis translate button might be unpressed.
Interesting .... I'm using the most recent beta and everything seems to be working perfectly, and I can see and manipulate all the arrows.
Just wanted to say "Thanks!!" Faux2D for creating this! I'm a pretty hard sell on most things, but I had to get this. So far I like it much better than Power Pose. For me, it's much more efficient having the controls in the same general area as what I'm controlling. It's simply amazing to get this level of pro rigging/functionality in DS!!
Thanks again!
Hey Dust, do you mind sharing a screenshot? Would like to see what it looks like on your side.
I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling it to see if that fixes it. Maybe something glitched.
I've attached a screenshot of what I see when I click on a face control parameter with the universal tool, everything looks fine except the x translate arrow :-/
Looked at your screenshot. It's not a bug. The X Axis must have been disabled accidentally for the Universal Tool.
To fix this select the Universal Tool, go to Tool Settings and under Translate make sure the X axis button is pressed.
You are 100% correct, must have accidentally turned it off at some point and since I never use the tool I just never noticed that. Thank you for pointing that out to me
I almost picked this up yesterday. I was intrigued but not sure how different it was from Powerpose which I use a lot already. After watching the video and seeing the possibilities when it comes to animation, I bought it today. I'm looking forward to playing around with it. Looks a like a great a tool for animators and changing expressions quickly on the fly.
I'd agree. It wasn't until I saw the video that I figured out it was a must buy for me.
I agree.
I was reluctant and planned to skip it, untill I realised what it actually contained.
I like it - it takes a bit of getting used to, but it actually makes subtle expressions easier too. Certainly it makes them simpler IMO. Being able to, for instance pull the corner of the mouth in any direction and have the rest follow along is way faster and more intuitive
I will second that I wouldn't mind a panel or the like (I am considering using the aux viewport as one - have a camera that points at it and then the figure in the main viewport)
Ignore the quizical expression - were very pleased
Intuitive and easy to use. Easy to make assymetric expressions. Fun to use - great product overall.
Just a quick example of usage on Bain - https://www.daz3d.com/bain-for-christian-8 - in Daz Studio 4.14 Beta.
It's FACS based. The FACS standard is the result of research into what the muscles in human faces can do, and it showed that all human expressions are a combination of a few dozen muscle contractions of various intensities. Theoretically then this product should be able to model any expression of which the human face is capable (if it includes all relevant FACS AUs).
But he most significant thing I can think of is that many facial expression capture technologies are FACS based, in that the product outputs a vector of the strengths of all the AUs over time. This means that it'd be trivial to write a script for Daz to drive these facial expression morphs from any FACS based capture tool. I think both Faceware and the iPhone X are such.
I bought it as soon as I saw the acronym FACS... because of this standard, it's going to be integratable into the vast world of capture hardware out there, not just the iPhone.
Respectfully, some of these statements are not correct.
Correct, each node appears to be a FACS Action Unit.
Correct, a facial expression is a vector of the intensities of all the FACS AUs.
This is not correct. The AUs were derived directly from the muscles that control externally observable changes in the face. Everything your face can do is representable by a vector of the intensities of all the AUs.
Of course, correct.
This is far from correct, and why this particular product is so sinificant.
The magic is that the AUs were not chosen arbitrarily, but specifically to be able to produce any expression that is observable. by corresponding to one or more contractions in the muscles on the face. Any facial expression should be posible, with the same meaning across different products that support the FACS standard.
The science is that they were clinically cataloged, and there is a body of incredible research around them. Of all the amazing things I saw at SIGGRAPH in 2019 the most incredible was "Baby X" (google it, you won't believe what you're seeing) where the researchers demonstrated that there is a direct relation between neurotransmitters that the brain produces and AUs. I.e. emotions we feel relate to chemicals in the brain, and these chemicals relate to our facial expressions. If you watch the Baby X demostration, watch the virtual baby's expression when the baby hears it's own name (the neurotransmitter associated with self awareness), when it hears "spider" ( a different neurotransmitter associated with curiosity), and when it hears "scary spider" (yet a different neurotransmitter associated with fear)...
Another example usage on Dwight - https://www.daz3d.com/dwight-for-genesis-8-male