Facial rigging without using expressions/set driven keys

[viviannaidoo]

I want to use my rigged character in Unity/Unreal engine for live streaming mocap data

I have a character that is rigged with a full joint based facial setup using set driven keys/expressions to control the movement of the teeth when the lower jaw moves.

Set driven keys is a Maya specific function and will not export out and into other packages like Unity.

How do I rig the face to allow the lower teeth to move without having to use Maya specific functions? 

NOTE: Using the blendshape approach also requires the use of set driven keys/expressions to control the teeth movement

[Anonymous]

Hey,

I'm a newb, but I am working on solutions to facial rigging and ue4 export also.

It's my understanding that you could animate your facial controllers in Maya then bake your animation keys to the facial rig and you're all set.

Of course this means you can't animate your face in UE4 or Unity because you lose the controllers, but this has to be.

Another option is to find a way to set up your controllers in something like alright rig for UE4, but I personally am not going to explore this route as it looks too time consuming and i'd rather animate in Maya for now.

[viviannaidoo]

I'm not looking to have baked animation brought into a game engine. I want to know how to rig a character's face which doesn't rely on set driven keys.

[Anonymous]

Gotcha,

But then, I don't see how this is a Maya related question. If I'm understanding you correctly, you want to setup controllers in UE4 or Unity that could receive your livestream mocap data?

If that's the case, you'll need to setup some kind of controller system in either engine that works with your livestream mocap data. Would be awesome to do this and I'd like to know more as you continue to research. This is surely possible as UE4 showed a demo recently of this very thing.

All the Best,

Ian

[Anonymous]

I know faceware has a UE4 realtime solution, but i know nothing of how it works, and most importantly I don't know if it works with blendshapes or your bone rig or both. I'd like to know more.

[viviannaidoo]

I'm using the Brekel Pro face software with a xbox kinect to capture and stream the mocap into Unity. The data streams in with the default model supplied but I now want to use my own custom character that I created.

The lower teeth wont move down when the jaw-open blendshape is activated. I can only get it to move down using set driven keys which is what I'm trying to avoid.

[viviannaidoo · Accepted solution]

Just so whoever needs a solution - I combined the head with the teeth so it's 1 model. When you create your blendshapes you just need to move the teeth geometry to the correct position.