SOFTIMAGE|FACE ROBOT

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How Face Robot Works

Face Robot enables artists to create high volumes of realistic human facial animation quickly for use with any 3D software workflow (XSI, Maya, 3ds Max, etc). Face Robot yields extremely good results for rendered and real-time applications.

Solving and Animating

1. The head mesh is imported into Face Robot from a 3D application (such as XSI, Maya or 3ds Max). This mesh can either be the game mesh or a high resolution version of the game mesh which a normal map is typically derived from.

2. The head mesh is “solved” using Face Robot. The solving process typically takes 15 minutes to produce realistic quality facial deformations. Animation can than be applied and the solve result can be tuned to reach the desired quality. Once a head is solved and tuned, large amounts of animation (either as mocap or keyframe) can be applied to the head and refined quickly for export.

3. Animation is applied to the head, either via C3D motion capture data, keyframe animation, or both.

4. The animation can be refined using shapes, custom rigging or any other method if required.

5. Ready to render: Export final animation as point cache file that can be used in XSI, Maya or 3ds Max, etc. or choose one of our rig export options to convert the Face Robot solve to a bone or shape-based rig.

Export Head Rig to Maya
Softimage provides a plug-in for Maya that allows you to import a fully solved Face Robot head into Maya for animation. This process converts the Face Robot solve into a shape-based rig that mimics the look and feel of Face Robot, and allows Maya animators to create or refine the animation using the same control set as in Face Robot.

Use facial motion capture files
For amazingly realistic results, Face Robot lets you import
C3D facial motion capture files that can drive any Face Robot head rig.

Mix motion capture and keyframe animation
Face Robot is flexible and allows you to animate faces using motion capture data, keyframe animation or both. Use animation layering to non-destructively add animations!


		" It seems clear though that Face Robot really will change the face of animation." Computer Graphics World


	Game Export Process The Game Export process takes a high quality facial deformation that Face Robot has created and converts it for real-time usage. It does this by converting details into animated normal maps (for example, wrinkles), and exporting bone animation that can be applied to your game mesh in the game engine. 1. The final head animation is aligned with the game mesh. 2. The user defines bones on the face that will be used to drive the facial animation on the game mesh. The envelopes are then automatically computed and applied, so that the bones now drive the facial animation on the game mesh. This bone configuration can be saved as a preset for use later. 3. Two normal maps are extracted: a. A “rest” state where all the muscles on the face are relaxed. b. A “stressed” state (“stress map”) where all the muscles on the face are contracted. An artist can sculpt these both in Zbrush or Mudbox. 4. Muscle regions on the face are created and stored on the game mesh as vertex colors. 5. A special real-time shader drives the animation of the muscle regions which in turn control the blending between the rest normal map and the stress normal map. The result of this Game Export Process is low resolution facial animation that looks startlingly real. As a character talks, the face deforms correctly. Wrinkles and skin folds appear exactly as they should in real life.

	Amazing realism in games Using Face Robot’s game export process, create normal maps for a ‘relaxed’ state and a ‘stressed’ state, then set up the face to animate between the two for unprecedented real-time realism.

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