Blur using Face Robot

[mixepix]

Don't know if this has been posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38wh5Fn4 ... r_embedded

[Bellsey]

Blur have been using Face Robot since its very beginning.

Face Robot was a best kept secret of Softimage and now Autodesk. It's an awesome feature and frankly I can't think of anything out there like it, off the shelf, that does as good a job.

[Mathaeus]

With all due respect, IMHO, etc... all that FR works have a something small, but noticeable wrong in all that motion... just wrong.
On the other side, mocap in Avatar movie... you take it as a real (but there, rendering have this 'slightly wrong' touch).

Of course I can't explain what I said , it's just impression.

BTW, Blur is switching to Vray, no MR anymore?

[mixepix]

I'm pretty sure that they didn't use of the shelf-software to make the mocap work in Avatar and I'm also guessing that they had are some pretty terrific artists working on it but what do I know. ;)

[Bellsey]

With all due respect, IMHO, etc... all that FR works have a something small, but noticeable wrong in all that motion... just wrong.
On the other side, mocap in Avatar movie... you take it as a real (but there, rendering have this 'slightly wrong' touch).

Of course I can't explain what I said , it's just impression.

BTW, Blur is switching to Vray, no MR anymore?

Sure facial animation is still very hard to do, despite the level of todays software, but FR is not an automated facial process though. It's strength is the animation rig it uses and the way its muscle/skin system allows you to animate the face. FR can take mocap data very easily, hand keyframe, or use both at the same time. But like any piece of software, the animation it produces can often only be as good as the person(s) using it.
However the problem with facial animation, certainly on human characters is that you can enter the 'uncanny valley' very quickly, especially if using mocap. The mocap or performance capture can be literally perfect and yet, it can look 'wrong' for want of a better word.

I thought the facial work in Avatar was very good and in some shots, perfect. Incidently, Motionbuilder was the main tool of choice for handling the performance capture on Avatar. You can even see it in use on much the making of videos.

[Mathaeus]

a bit off topic, but, how development of Face Robot is comparable to development of, let's say, decent, 'on the shelf' renderer. Did Softimage guys had any plan to develop Softimage's renderer, anytime in last ten years? How many people worked on Face Robot?

For me, what's really impressive in Blur's work, it's rendering...

[mixepix]

I really don't understand how you can't admire their animations but if it's only the rendering that you like, I suggest you go to FXPHD and take Zap's Mental Ray course where he teaches you how to make the most of Mental Ray in Softimage (amongst others). He even uses a scene from Dante's Inferno when his discussing FG.

[Bellsey]

a bit off topic, but, how development of Face Robot is comparable to development of, let's say, decent, 'on the shelf' renderer. Did Softimage guys had any plan to develop Softimage's renderer, anytime in last ten years? How many people worked on Face Robot?

For me, what's really impressive in Blur's work, it's rendering...

I am not sure what you mean by renderer in Face Robot? Face Robot was a standalone product and built upon Softimage (XSI) when it first started, therefore the default renderer is Mental Ray. The development was based in LA at what was the Softimage Special Projects team. There was approx 5-6 people working on it, but now it has been fully implemented into the main app of Softimage, the main dev team in Montreal have taken it over.

In terms of rendering though, the default renderer in Softimage being Mental Ray. However that doesn't mean all Face Robot work has to be rendered in Mental Ray. You can export data to another app and render in using something else, which some customers using FR have done.

[Mathaeus]

well I meant, additional renderer for Softimage, *instead* of Face Robot. Let's say, something like Maya hardware renderer, Max'es QuickSilver....

Anyway, let go back to topic. Of course it's great that galls and guys at Blur are using Face Robot - but these days, especially after mentioned Avatar movie, I'm afraid that FR just doesn't show enough for convincing a big guys for investing in Softimage. Motion Builder - well that's another story.

Cheers

[Bellsey]

well I meant, additional renderer for Softimage, *instead* of Face Robot. Let's say, something like Maya hardware renderer, Max'es QuickSilver....

Anyway, let go back to topic. Of course it's great that galls and guys at Blur are using Face Robot - but these days, especially after mentioned Avatar movie, I'm afraid that FR just doesn't show enough for convincing a big guys for investing in Softimage. Motion Builder - well that's another story.
Cheers

Erm, I'm not sure I really follow, or have I got confused?.
Are you sure you understand exactly what Face Robot actually is?. Face Robot is not a renderer, it's a system and tool set for producing facial animation.

Now, I've used Motiobuilder for years, back when it was called FilmBox, and it's a great package to use. And although it handles facial very well, and it has similar workflows to that of Face Robot, I don't think it quite goes as far in giving you the full control to set up soft tissue solvers and muscles that Face Robot does, to really control the face and how the skin actually moves etc. However you can use Face Robot together with Motionbuilder to do facial and in fact some customers have done so.

Whilst its true that during the production of Avatar, Motionbuilder was used extensively, it wasn't solely responsible for the all the facial animation. They used different techniques and software to archieve the final result and if you check out the Cinefex edition which contains the article about Avatar, they explain how they did things in much more detail.

[luceric]

Avatar isn't really relevant because FaceRobot isn't for productions that have 300 milions $ to play with and a staff of hundreds TDs.
It's for the people who won't be making their own rigs and will be processing a lot of mo cap data very rapidly

[Hirazi Blue]

@luceric - The one thing I never did quite get, is why Autodesk didn't turn Face Robot into a separate standalone application at a lower price. I am quite happy they didn't, but wouldn't it have made more business sense to add a lower priced standalone Face Robot to the specialist line-up "Motionbuilder, Mudbox and the rest" instead of "reintegrating" it into Softimage 2010.
Could you maybe shed some light on the reasoning behind this?

[Bellsey]

at the time of the Autodesk acquisition, Face Robot was already a standalone product and at a decent price, and lower than what people thought. Many people still would incorrectly assume that FR had remained at the same price since its initial release.

However, I believe it was always the intention of eventually incorporating it properly into the main Softimage (XSI) package, regardless of whether Autodesk or anyone else had acquired Softimage.

[luceric]

Face Robot was a product made sold by the dissolved Avid Softimage consulting team in LA.
So Autodesk choices were 1) turn it an Autodesk consulting product, which is not something they do 2) pretend it never existed and kill it, and loose all the effort we put (and were still putting, with the lipsync feature) in it. 2) make it a Softimage product feature so that users can benefit from it

[Hirazi Blue]

Thanks for the info ;)