ZBrushCentral

Janimation Head Tech

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#1

Hi everyone. This is a test on some facial animation R & D we’ve been working on here at Janimation. We used Softimage Face Robot as a base and then used our own ICE tech, Zbrush for modeling the head and it’s facial shapes, and of course Arnold to polish it off. Bradley Gabe was the mind behind the ICE tech, and Greg Punchatz and I handled the rest.

Greg and I modeled the head in Zbrush and I did all of the facial shapes for animation in Zbrush as well. The use of Zbrush and its layers were key in getting the best deformation because it allowed me to test how each shape works using the rest pose as my base layer and each additional shape on top of that.

Thanks to everyone here at Pixologic for Zbrush, and the people here at ZbrushCentral for all of the inspiration you provide. Let us know what you think.

[youtubehd]pZTN-jRRM30&hd=1[/youtubehd]

[attach=252301]HeadTech0366.jpg[/attach]

ZBCThumb1.jpg

Attachments

HeadTech0366.jpg

#2

Very cool. Any upcoming projects you can mention that will have this technology?

#3

Thats quality!
Maybe it was the actor but i dont like the “a” he does a sort of fake smile?
Maybe a few too many wrinkles around the eyes on the neutral pose.
really believable work though.
5*

#4

this was an internal test to further our own RnD. :wink:

#5

Really good example of FaceRobot and Arnold. You should have got in touch and I could have shared some skin and eye settings with you!

What you guys did is very hard to achieve and it looks good, not quite 100% realism, mainly the skin is a little soft/waxy and perhaps some of the animation looses the actors original “Intent” in the expressions. It also has some of that Blur type FaceRoboty feel to it.

Still very impressive and Kudos to you. Damn hard to get that kind of level of quality!

#6

@ Infinite-We used your head scan as early test renders!! I wish we could have scanned a head for our tests for that next level of realism. Your work was an inspiration to us while working on this. We would be happy to get any advice on our shader setup.

I dont think we got the caustic/lightbounce feeling in the iris quite right yet.

Thanks for the feedback!!

#7

That’s very kind, thank you. I hope it did help in some way. I will send a PM with some ideas for settings etc. I’ve got a better technique for doing eyes now, I could share with you later on.

I think scans are essential for realism these days, no way around it.

Again, really great work. Toughest thing in the world trying to animate a face. way beyond my capabilities, so I can only comment from the side lines. Everyone and their Grandma are hardened critics these days! :lol:

#8

Really good guys. Great looking model…gotta love zbrush. It’s really cool to see where mo-capping has gone now-a-days too. The a,e,i,o,u was looking a bit subtle, but that might just have been because of the actor- you could see some great deformation on the other shots. Looking forward to checking out what your company develops further!

#9

Here are some additional pictures of our process through Zbrush. First is the hi-res model which started off in Softimage and then was transferred into Zbrush for sculpting the forms and all the nice pores and wrinkles.

HeadTech_ZbrushHiRes.jpg

Attachments

HeadTech_ZbrushExpressions_01.jpg

HeadTech_ZbrushExpressions_02.jpg

#10

WOW great! :+1:

#11

Great realtime mocap system guys.
:+1:

Emmanuel.

Sketchbook and other

#12

Wow, this is so darn cool! Kudos to the team! Awesome…just pure awesome!

#13

Hot damn! that is some cool R&D that you guys did.

#14

thank you everyone for the replies and constructive crits. it’s always nice to hear back from such a great community. please keep the CC coming it’s the best way to improve :wink:

@maya4fun - thanks but this wasn’t real time. it’s rendered in Softimage using Arnold, and it took quite a bit of Zbrushing love between the motion capture and the final product.

@Infinite - thanks for the kind words. your heads were a definite inspiration and killer reference for this project. i always look forward to see what you have next!

@ tezZy thanks!

@solidsnakexxx appreciate it :slight_smile:

@ bas Mazur thank you!

#15

Great testing guys, thanks for sharing :+1: !

#16

I was asked for some wire frames elsewhere but thought i should post them here as well. This is the resolution at which the head shapes were sculpted and final rendered. Cheers!

[attach=252732]Wires_Side.jpg[/attach]

[attach=252733]Wires_Full.jpg[/attach]

[attach=252734]wires_CU.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

Wires_Side.jpg

Wires_Full.jpg

wires_CU.jpg

#17

Great job guys!
What bothers me only, on this fantastic demo, is shader setup on teeth. But I know it will be fixed next time.

But overall, great job guys. :+1:

#18

Hey guys here is a link to a real time verson of this head animation tech we have been exploring. Zbrush played a major role in the animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m0QDLIDJ94&feature=channel_video_title

Enjoy!

ZBC1.jpg
[attach=254175]Dingus_RealtimeTEX_01.0224.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

Dingus_RealtimeTEX_01.0224.jpg

#19

Sorry for the double post but the thumbnail of a forhead that got posted was not going to get any clicks :wink: If you guys are like me you only click on the cool thumbnails…

#20

How on earth? In Softimage?

Shame you couldn’t rotate more fully around the head. Was there a reason for that? Great to see the results you are getting.