Answered

Facial rigs?

Peter - Soxware Developer 4 years ago updated 4 years ago 1

Hi, I tried using this on a generic avatar with a face rig. I only got controls for humanoid features. Any way to make this work? Also I want to mix FBX animations with umotion animations (blend then together with layers/masks, etc) is there any guide for this?

Answer

Answer
Answered

Hi,

thank you very much for your support request.

There are 2 ways facial animations are typically realized. Your model either has bones for controlling the face, eyes, mouths etc. or it has blend-shapes. Both are supported by UMotion. In case it's just bones, you should be able to see them and edit them to your needs using the regular move/rotate/scale tool (like you would do with any other bone). For blend shapes, UMotion asks you at the beginning (when you assign a character that has blend shapes to the pose editor for the first time) if UMotion should add controls for the blend shapes. Depending on your selection, the blend shapes are either attached to the head bone or to a new custom transform. Select it and you see the controls in the channels view.


I only got controls for humanoid features

The "muscle" control panel shown in the scene view is humanoid exclusive (as only the humanoid file format has pre-defined muscles). Something like this is not possible for generic as a generic model can be anything.

Also I want to mix FBX animations with umotion animations (blend then together with layers/masks, etc) is there any guide for this?

Import both animations you want to mix. Create a new layer in one of the animations and then copy only the keys for the bones you want to mix to the new layer (no need for "masking"). There are 2 types of layers, additive and override. Override is replacing what's underneath and additive adds changes on top of the existing animation (useful for manually offsetting parts of an animation, not useful when mixing two existing animations). More information on layers can be found in the manual at "Clip Editor/Layers".

Here is a video tutorial that uses animation layers to correct existing animations: UMotion - Editing Existing Animations

A nice overview of all video tutorials can be found in the "Video Tutorial" chapter of the UMotion manual.

Let me know in case you have any follow-up questions.

Best regards,
Peter

Answer
Answered

Hi,

thank you very much for your support request.

There are 2 ways facial animations are typically realized. Your model either has bones for controlling the face, eyes, mouths etc. or it has blend-shapes. Both are supported by UMotion. In case it's just bones, you should be able to see them and edit them to your needs using the regular move/rotate/scale tool (like you would do with any other bone). For blend shapes, UMotion asks you at the beginning (when you assign a character that has blend shapes to the pose editor for the first time) if UMotion should add controls for the blend shapes. Depending on your selection, the blend shapes are either attached to the head bone or to a new custom transform. Select it and you see the controls in the channels view.


I only got controls for humanoid features

The "muscle" control panel shown in the scene view is humanoid exclusive (as only the humanoid file format has pre-defined muscles). Something like this is not possible for generic as a generic model can be anything.

Also I want to mix FBX animations with umotion animations (blend then together with layers/masks, etc) is there any guide for this?

Import both animations you want to mix. Create a new layer in one of the animations and then copy only the keys for the bones you want to mix to the new layer (no need for "masking"). There are 2 types of layers, additive and override. Override is replacing what's underneath and additive adds changes on top of the existing animation (useful for manually offsetting parts of an animation, not useful when mixing two existing animations). More information on layers can be found in the manual at "Clip Editor/Layers".

Here is a video tutorial that uses animation layers to correct existing animations: UMotion - Editing Existing Animations

A nice overview of all video tutorials can be found in the "Video Tutorial" chapter of the UMotion manual.

Let me know in case you have any follow-up questions.

Best regards,
Peter