What would be best solution for facial rigging for Unity3d engine?

#1

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this? I work in 3ds max, and so far my best solution for facial rig was a standard bone setup and it gave me best results, although it isn’t very animator friendly. As far as I can tell Unity doesn’t respond well to bones that are stretching (although someone told me that I can use them), also sometimes I get “non-orthogonal matrix support” error from my fbx exporter, should I worry about that? Everything works fine when I import fbx in unity, but sometimes I get odd results and need to tweak stuff.

I like to do my own custom rig setup, but I’ve also tried rigging with CAT - I find it buggy, annoying and limiting - if I can do my own rig for character that works well I think there is no need for bothering with CAT, correct me if I’m wrong :slight_smile: I’ve seen couple of good tutorials for CAT, and it gave me a few interesting ideas, I am currently trying to rig the face without bones - I am using geo objects that are applied to skin modifier as envelopes.

I’dd also like to mention that I am a beginner rigger, been riggin stuff for couple of months, but I am primarily focusing my interest on rigging for games :slight_smile:

Any input and opinion on this issue will be greatly appreciated :thumbsup:

#2

Not sure of Unity, but game engines that support stretchy bones are rare. That doesn’t mean you can’t do a facial rig with non-stretchy bones instead - it would require a different skinning approach (having gradient weights to act as “stretch” instead of assigning full weights to a bone that is stretching), but it’s easily doable.

I am currently trying to rig the face without bones - I am using geo objects that are applied to skin modifier as envelopes.

What you’re doing is basically using a bone that doesn’t stretch… Skin doesn’t care about the geometry of your geometry “bone” object and just takes the pivot (you could use points instead, it would give the same result). Rather, you can just use bones, but disable stretching, either the way you rig them, or just disable it in bone tools under “object properties”, set “Stretch” to None.

#3

Hey

Facial Animation for Unity, try Point Cache.

If you wanna rig a character, I advice using Character Studio instead of CAT, CS is more versatile

#4

Thank you for your replies.

What you’re doing is basically using a bone that doesn’t stretch… Skin doesn’t care about the geometry of your geometry “bone” object and just takes the pivot (you could use points instead, it would give the same result). Rather, you can just use bones, but disable stretching, either the way you rig them, or just disable it in bone tools under “object properties”, set “Stretch” to None.

I am currently using that approach for facial rig, and it works ok. Requires a little bit patient and careful skinning but, as you said, it is easily doable. I am then using reaction manager to tie deforming objects to gui…

Facial Animation for Unity, try Point Cache.

Couple months ago I think I tried that, but my Unity guy couldn’t get it to work, there was no animation loaded in unity when I export fbx or when he tries to use the txt file that point cache creates.
Can you maybe tell me a bit more about the workflow involving point cache? Or do you have a link to some tutorial that explains the process?

I’ve used character studio in the past, but I am now focused on creating my own custom rigs, it may take a little more time to set up properly but I find this way to be way more animator friendly, and it gives better results in the end. My opinion :slight_smile:

#5

Hey there.

The point cache workflow is easy.

Lets assume we have a head, normal geometry, no morph targets, nothing. When the head has been rigged with, lets say ,mocap data. In 3ds max, or your package of choice, apply Point Cache modifier, or the equivalent in your package, and then export to a .pc2 or .xml. Once this is done, goto MegaFiers (google it) and buy their MegaFiers package, its a vertex deformation and object modifier plugin for unity3d. Once in unity, import the head (with no animation or helpers whatsoever, just static geometry) and then apply the megafiers modifier and the point cache modifier. Then you can import the .pc2 file for THAT PARTICULAR geometry and play the animation.

Easy as memorizing all digits of pi

Cheers.

#6

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