Skyrim facial animation . from custom skeletal rig

[AlphaWoIF]

I tried to get around the addmorph issue by using the blender script http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14589

the plan was to import all the morph targets and add them as keyshapes to the basis , but the instructions never covered that part & i dont like to use blender so i end up with all the targets in the scene but cant seem to make them keyshapes for the mesh as i have no idea how to and no amount of messing about seemed to get me anywhere

 

Back on To addmorph tool, these are the instructions for use, but for me they are a bit vague for my understanding as i found my mind requires things to be specific for me to understand fully.

 

AddMorph <Input TRI file> <Output TRI file> <An OBJ file with your morph> <The name of the morph to create>

 

 

<An OBJ file with your morph> <The name of the morph to create>

so ?

is this section just referencing the input output functuions or is it required to input

 

&

am i required to also type the input & output words in these codes <Input TRI file> <Output TRI file>

for example <input MoodHappy [15]> <output geralt face morphs>

 

im kind of confused by this tool

Edited November 18, 2012 by AlphaWoIF

[Ghogiel]

I haven't used it in like 4 years so I am totally guessing just on what you typed, I would put the addmorph exe into same folder you are working from, including the objs and the tri file you are messing with. execute it.

 

and type Addmorph <vanillahead.tri> <mynewhead.tri> <filename.obj> <MoodHappy [15]>

Edited November 18, 2012 by Ghogiel

[AlphaWoIF]

this app seems a dead end

it dosent matter what i try it does not work ,just throws up this same error

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/807/34646351.png

[throttlekitty]

get rid of the brackets. Using "<>" in command line apps is common for giving examples, just a visual separation between arguments. Also, it's good practice to enclose entries with spaces with parentheses, since spaces would mean moving on to the next argument. (in case you ever create "Smiling Happy Face.obj")

 

In your example, it should look like so:

 

Addmorph Geralt.tri GeraltFace.tri Anger.obj Moodanger

 

Geralt.tri/GeraltFace.tri: It's been a while, I forget if you can write to the same tri as the input.

Anger.obj: the expression you've exported.

Moodanger: I think the bracketed numbers you're seeing are a blender index thing.

 

It sounds like you're on the right track with exporting snapshots of rig states as obj to be used as morphs. There's also the sidecar tri files to think about too, one for racial adjustments and one for character generation. I don't know if the chargen tri file needs to be present at any point in order for a head to work or not.

 

 

Ghogiel, they aren't using FaceGen, so there's no .egm mess this time, = no need for modifier morphs. :D :D :D

 

edit: I still think these subforums aren't helpful at all.

Edited November 19, 2012 by throttlekitty

[AlphaWoIF]

Thanks throttlekitty between yourself and Ghogiel i believe you are both the best in the business for Face morphs .

If i ever pull this of and get a good work flow its only fair i put up a decent tutorial to help others avoid these speed bumps in return for the help you are both giving me :D.

 

Still would be awesome if somebody out there made a 3dsmax plugin over the blender one as i don't think i would be having these issues as ive become quite resourceful in Max.

 

Update..

although it may look bad in the pic i still see it as a step in the right direction and its prob more to do with the fact that i know my self that the heads were not positioned in max 100% as when i exported them the were as you seen them in a line. DOH! and ive read that the morphs remember the vertex position in space. I pretty much in put the code in the format you suggested without all the <(" stuff and it worked , only tried the anger expression so far but like i said i can try more once i get this other issue fixed up

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/3096/91749256.png

Edited November 19, 2012 by AlphaWoIF

[Ghogiel]

I think you are correct in the assuming the head mesh in the nif/ obj alignment is what you are experiencing there. I would zero all pivots 0 XYZ to make things simple and better for debugging

[AlphaWoIF]

Removed comment on issue as i solved it >:) Edited December 1, 2012 by AlphaWoIF

[AlphaWoIF]

Arrgh its not going well still:(

 

Basically i scrapped all the face morphs and created better ones using the original head bones from the original model and 3dsmax morpher modifier.

so now i have a slightly different head model and new face morphs to use also, which is great, but

i am unable add those face morphs to the original MaleHead.tri or the last custom one i created , without an issue saying the tri file has 1588 verts and the obj file has 1480 verts , so i decided its because the original meshes are slightly different. so tried to create a brand new tri file from the new basis head.

 

well long story short i still get the same problem and ive run out of ideas because there is no other way i know , how to actually create a new tri file based on the custom head mesh that i can add morph targets to.

 

and the guy who upped the blender import export script is being quiet , Man Blender suck big time everything is such a hassle with that program.

i also tried to add the morph targets in to blender and add them as shape keys to the basis head , but nothing i do works , and im stuck with blender 2.4a because of the script i use for extracting witcher meshes only works on that version. Im getting Render Rage.

 

i have no idea where these extra verts are coming from as its a direct obj import, tri export

Edited December 2, 2012 by AlphaWoIF

[Ghogiel]

Before you go mental... do a test to see if the work flow works. there are issues with Obj and vert number orders that you can encounter that will screw the whole thing up.

 

^

I did warn you.

 

What are your obj export settings? double check for smoothing groups not being the issue.

 

Anyway one of the workarounds I devised was to export all the things with the nif exporter, including the face morph meshes. do not strippify etc.

The vert index should be intact and you can check the num of verts in nifskope between the meshes. Then can export to obj from nifskope, the last issue usually comes down to alignment problems.

Edited December 2, 2012 by Ghogiel

[throttlekitty]

What Ghogiel said. :)

 

Prepare your base head properly before creating the tri. If you have any hard edges(multiple smoothing groups), or uv seams, you should manually split the edges along those edges. And make sure that any further exports/imports stick with those splits, and no auto-welding or unwelding is going on behind the scenes.