Facegen. thoughts please?

HorusRaHorusRa Posts: 1,662
Is it worth it? Does it do a good job? I see it doesn't cover G8. I wonder if there is an upgrade discount when or if a new version comes out.
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Comments

  • xyer0xyer0 Posts: 5,639

    Lots of samples for you to try out here. The distortion of the eyeball is the biggest problem I've had, though there exists a free fix for it.

  • Griffin AvidGriffin Avid Posts: 3,755

    Where can one find out more about the eyeball issue and the free fix?

  • Facegen is lame IMO. It does a fairly poor job of actually matching character morphs - a whole lot of the way it makes the character look like the original is just by pasting their face onto the texture. When you use a normal texture the character generally gets nearly unrecognizable and it becomes evident the morph needs a whole lot of work. So if you're going to do that work anyway might as well just make it from scratch. Which brings us to the second drawback. Morphs made with it are not redistributable. Learning to model morphs and/or buying merchant resources to work with is superior in every way.
  • BlueIreneBlueIrene Posts: 1,318
    Facegen is lame IMO. It does a fairly poor job of actually matching character morphs - a whole lot of the way it makes the character look like the original is just by pasting their face onto the texture. When you use a normal texture the character generally gets nearly unrecognizable and it becomes evident the morph needs a whole lot of work. So if you're going to do that work anyway might as well just make it from scratch. Which brings us to the second drawback. Morphs made with it are not redistributable. Learning to model morphs and/or buying merchant resources to work with is superior in every way.

    That's not how I read what's written on their License and Legal page...

    'Texture images, morph targets and FaceGen '.fg' files created with Artist are yours to distribute.'

    https://facegen.com/artist_legal.htm

    It's biggest limitation for me was the eyes, which I never got round to chasing down the fix for. Other than that, you can do a lot with it, especially if you're after creating original characters rather than 'celebrity' likenesses.

     

  • darren_dd9be07039darren_dd9be07039 Posts: 59
    edited January 2018

    I don't distribute morphs I make so it's been a while since I've read the legal stuff for it. It was that you could create morphs and distrubute them, but not the textures that were created by facegen from the photos if you did not own the copyright or have permission of the photographer/person that the photo was of. This is why some facegen users distribute morphs  but not the textures. This have may have changed though.

    Post edited by darren_dd9be07039 on
  • HorusRaHorusRa Posts: 1,662
    edited March 2019

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    Post edited by HorusRa on
  • If you google Facegen, you'll see that you can download a crippled version that will leaves letters tattooed on the foreheads of any characters you create. If I were you, I would download that version, play with it, see if you like the results, and then decide if you want to upgrade and buy.

    You really need to use two HQ photos (profile and face-forward) with specific lighting to get the best results out of Facegen if you are aiming for an exact likeness. If you don't have photos like that, you're going to find that much of the likeness fades away if you swap the Facegen-generated textures for other textures.

    Personally, the best thing about Facegen is that it can let you generate easy variations of character heads based on ethnicity, age, gender, and so forth.

  • HorusRaHorusRa Posts: 1,662
    edited March 2019

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  • Griffin AvidGriffin Avid Posts: 3,755

    I agree with Mighty Mysterio. A facegen rolled character cannot truly compete with the remarkable work from the Daz PAs.

    BUT! If you;re going to be filling out scenes and/or have lots of extras or simply use A LOT of different characters, it's the ultimate product.

    There are X#of faces morph packages, but I find many of the characters look a little too similar.

    Another HUGE factor is your source material. If you don't have high resolution pure frontal and profile shots- with perfect lighting, you could be in a for some heavy work.

    AND there is work to be done inside of FaceGen itself - after you've done some face generating.

    Nothing is a shortcut to creating awesome characters, but this offers another avenue towards building a library of peoples.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    What Mighty Mysterio said. I've gotten maybe one or two usable morphs out of photos, but it's like a big bag of interesting face generation to work with.

     

  • missuskissesmissuskisses Posts: 918
    edited January 2018

    You really need to use two HQ photos (profile and face-forward) with specific lighting to get the best results out of Facegen if you are aiming for an exact likeness. If you don't have photos like that, you're going to find that much of the likeness fades away if you swap the Facegen-generated textures for other textures.

    In older versions you really did need two HQ photos with specific lighting. Most recent version actually does quite well with just one HQ photo (face forward) and whatever-res profile photo--just pick the only use profile points option. That said, the rest is still rather true. FG can't handle certain nuances, such as nose bumps, etc., from just the photos. 

    Re lighting--FG will actually correct some minor lighting issues, but heavily cast shadows are definitely bad. If it's a "mostly OK" photo, you can always tinker with the texture in an image editor.

    IMO, FG is a treasure if you mostly do 2D work, less so with 3D work. Also great if you're looking to generate different-looking people (including from photos), rather than being obsessed with just likenesses. The photo-generated work is also nice to dial in for an asymmetrical feel that is very natural (though you can also just hit a button and get your face to be symmetrical if you want).

    (FG says they are working on G8 support early this year, and also that they anticipate fixing the eye problem in future updates. In the meantime, Sickleyield's tutorial for morph transfers works quite well with FG morphs.)

    Post edited by missuskisses on
  • Charlie JudgeCharlie Judge Posts: 12,268
    edited January 2018
    avxp said:

    Where can one find out more about the eyeball issue and the free fix?

    Discussion: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/184396/fixing-eye-deformation-on-transferred-morphs

    Free fix: https://www.sharecg.com/v/88497/browse/10/Software-and-Tools/Eye-Jaw-Morph-Fixer-for-Face-Morphs Note: This is a standalone application.

    Post edited by Charlie Judge on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890
    edited January 2018

    I have FaceGen and the biggest problems is the eyeballs seem to shrink or distort. The other problem was shaved geometry on the jaw & nose cause mostly by flash photography washing out crucial shadow detail because the tonal range of the photo was reduced. Some people it seems to do a easily recognizable job morphing and others it seems to be very difficult but I but that down to mostly a lack of good source photos.

    But you really can't blame FaceGen for poor source photos and if you intend to use FaceGen to make a lot of morphs of celebrities you will find good source photos are in far fewer availability that you would of thought given their fame.

    It does do a good job if you have good picctures. When you get pictures it is crucial that the pictures are not photoshopped, post processed, too much makeup, too much hair or hair dangling over the face, and too might bright light or flash and then you will get a good morph except the eye problem mentioned earlier. It will be as good as 3D artist can do to but it will not include certain caricatured geometry and skin texture exaggerations that artist often to to make a work of art more quickly recognizable as a person than a photo of the person themself because strictly speaking the exaggerations that artists do aren't there to that degree in a photo anyway.

    The textures made by FaceGen, they are barely passable but that's not a surprise and are much better than you'd think in most cases even if barely servicable.

    It's pretty clear that a person wearing clown makeup or camo makeup for example will go completely unrecognized even by people that know the makeup wearer because people rely more of the exact coloring and blemishes and wrinkles of skin more than they rely on the skeletal exact geometry of the face to recognize people. Portrait photographers use flood flash and shadows to obscure facial features and skin blemishes and such, so often a professional portrait will be less serviceable that a couple of selfies with reasonable ambient light in a room. Visually skin conveys more about a person to the viewer than head geometry and take that skin uniqueness away and then only head geometry seems not so recognizable anymore even if correct. That's a natural fact of mathematics and information storage. And that makes logical sense too as far more is exposed information wise from a person's skin coloring, wrinkles, blemishes, and such than is conveyed by strict geometry only. Well, that's a bit of a fudge because the wrinkles and blemishes and such are geometry too, so taking away all that extra geometry that makes people unique understandly makes the remaining geometry less recognizable.

    So to use FaceGen most effectively you will need to learn to create human textures yourself to a standard as high as DAZ Store Genesis 8 human textures so you can capture those nuances of individuals not conveyed by skeletal geometry alone.

    It includes also a randomizizer face function that creates so many more unique characters than you'll ever see in the DAZ Store.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • HorusRaHorusRa Posts: 1,662
    edited March 2019

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    Post edited by HorusRa on
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,714
    edited January 2018
    HorusRa said:

    I think for the most part my interest was using pics of me, the wife, daughter and grandaughter, just stuff like that. Thanks for the heads up on the crippled version, I'm guessing by the time I got pics together and then try to learn the plugin, plus working and sleep the sale would have been over. Maybe in the future I can think about it,......should I feel brave with my money. =P

     

    If you get full face on and profile hair pulled as far back as possible, you'll get good results; get decent resolution; make sure light is consistent between profile and portrait; reduce glare.

    You might have to create eye ones seperately; take close up high res of the eyes.

    It does depend on the quality of the images; it is worth trying with a great portrait shot only, you never know.

    Lots (and even a little lose hair) will detrimentally affect the results.

    (I can see younger siblings having loads of fun with this - stuffing said sibling down the throat of a Daz TRex or a Demon would no doubt appeal to many. :D And hopefully rescueing them just before it happens too. wink)

    EDIT:

    FaceGen gives advice on the type of image, such as: not from above or below, or angled... all essential to getting a better result.

    Post edited by nicstt on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890
    edited January 2018
    HorusRa said:

    I did just now finish watching some youtube videos of Facegen, though I couldn't find any videos for the version sold here at Daz.
    I think even for the novelty of just doing my immediate family members it just wouldn't be worth it to me. I noticed a lot of different operations which you guys have mentioned above.
    At least I have the $55 dollars to spend on other daz shineys. smiley

    The DAZ version and the website version are the same.

    FaceGen is great for cosplay too, not just family & friends, if you learn how to find appropriate pictures. You need some patience in finding good pictures.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • HorusRaHorusRa Posts: 1,662
    edited March 2019

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  • LyonessLyoness Posts: 1,606

    What I like about facegen is the creation of a fairly decent face skin. It saves me a good about of time.

    I would natural resculpt the face anyways. Convert G3 to G8 and rework from there.

  • HorusRaHorusRa Posts: 1,662
    edited March 2019

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  • LyonessLyoness Posts: 1,606
    edited January 2018
    HorusRa said:

    what does one do for the torso and limb textures, I mean where do aquire those, that seems to be something that wasn't covered in the few youtube videos that I watched, unless I overlooked it by accident.

    I make my own

    sad

    you are provided with a base texture set for torso,arms, legs.... I don't know how distributable those are.  Also, it's only the diffuse layers, so you would still need, bumps and spec maps.

    Post edited by Lyoness on
  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    edited January 2018

    I don't distribute morphs I make so it's been a while since I've read the legal stuff for it. It was that you could create morphs and distrubute them, but not the textures that were created by facegen from the photos if you did not own the copyright or have permission of the photographer/person that the photo was of. This is why some facegen users distribute morphs  but not the textures. This have may have changed though.

    It looks like they updated their license at some point. I admit I hadn't looked at it for something like five years.

    https://facegen.com/artist_legal.htm

    Really good for them, not being able to distribute morphs was bizarre.

    EDIT: Oh they just stopped selling the non-Pro edition which I think was the one with those goofy restrictions.

    Post edited by agent unawares on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890
    edited January 2018

    I don't distribute morphs I make so it's been a while since I've read the legal stuff for it. It was that you could create morphs and distrubute them, but not the textures that were created by facegen from the photos if you did not own the copyright or have permission of the photographer/person that the photo was of. This is why some facegen users distribute morphs  but not the textures. This have may have changed though.

    It looks like they updated their license at some point. I admit I hadn't looked at it for something like five years.

    https://facegen.com/artist_legal.htm

    Really good for them, not being able to distribute morphs was bizarre.

    EDIT: Oh they just stopped selling the non-Pro edition which I think was the one with those goofy restrictions.

    Wow, I wasn't planning on distributing any FaceGen morphs but I'm glad I can if I want to. That's a change from only a month or two back when I read on their website you have to buy an almost $2000 license to distribute FaceGen morphs.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • I don't distribute morphs I make so it's been a while since I've read the legal stuff for it. It was that you could create morphs and distrubute them, but not the textures that were created by facegen from the photos if you did not own the copyright or have permission of the photographer/person that the photo was of. This is why some facegen users distribute morphs  but not the textures. This have may have changed though.

    It looks like they updated their license at some point. I admit I hadn't looked at it for something like five years.

    https://facegen.com/artist_legal.htm

    Really good for them, not being able to distribute morphs was bizarre.

    EDIT: Oh they just stopped selling the non-Pro edition which I think was the one with those goofy restrictions.

    Wow, I wasn't planning on distributing and FaceGen morphs but I'm glad I can if I want to. That's a change from only a month or two back when I read on their website you have to buy an almost $2000 license to distribute FaceGen morphs.

    Yup.

  • Although the terms have changed and the morphs are distributable. Owner copyright still prevales if you use someone else's images to generate the texture, it's like a mirror of the Daz TOS where you can use their model to create a 2d image for commercial use but not a 3d model. With facegen you could use someone else's images as the basis of the morph file but not the texture derived from them for commercial use.

    If you are using your own photos or just using the other ones for your your own non-commercial art and in no way defaming the person in their use, then you should be fine. If you were distributing or selling them, then creating your own textures from scratch will always look better anyway.

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548
    edited January 2018

    I personally enjoy it, but it's not a one-click solution and the instructions are lacking. To get the most out of it, you need:

    -as stated above, a full face picture with the hair out of the face, even lighting, and the face perfectly level and not tilted at all (alot of glamor shots of celebs tilt the head slightly to hide any asymmetry in the face). If an EXACT match to the eyecolor is important to you, you also need eyes facing forward, because otherwise you don't get a useable eye texture.

    -a good quality skin for the figure of your choice, with eyebrows similar to the person you want it to look like and skintone and age in roughly the right range. If all the best G3F skins you own have plucked eyebrows, and you're trying to recreate a female celeb with relatively full eyebrows, you can't complain about how not-authentic your Facegen creation looks when you take the Facegen-derived skin away. The Facegen skin output for anything less than really hi-res, well-lit source photos is mediocre, and you're better off not depending on it.

    -To compensate for lighting that is too bright or too dark on one side of the source image, go to the picture editor of your choice, draw a square selection over the area that's too dark/too bright, create a new layer, fill it with black (for an overly bright area) or white (for an overly dark one), set to overlay, reduce opacity until it seems to blend properly with the side of the picture you didn't change.

    -To compensate for a tilted face, go to the picture editor of your choice, and rotate the picture until the chin appears level with the bottom edge of the picture. Crop to taste.

    -Once you bring the photo into FaceGen, you will be prompted to lay down "points" corresponding to certain key features. It is more important to make sure that each pair of points lines up in a horizontal plane than that they match the location of the feature you are asked to pinpoint, eg, you should make the points for the outer corners of the eyes line up with each other horizontally, even if the person's eyes don't. For the eye-center dots, don't aim for the pupils, aim for the part of the iris just underneath the pupil and closest to the center of the eye. (This is especially important if you are stuck with a pic where the subject is looking sideways). For the outer edge of the jaw, select points that are horizontally in line with the corners of the mouth.

    -Once the base face is generated, go to the Modify/Demographics area and reduce the sliders for Caricature-Shape and Asymmetry to very low values, whatever makes the face look best for you. You may need to tweak You can also tweak the individual features by going to "Shape." The options are closer to Bethesda's RPGs (Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout Whichever One They Did) than to the Daz figures. If you have a profile or three-quarter shot, you are better off using the mouse to pivot the face to the correct angle, and then modifying the features under Shape rather than trying to generate a profile. If you're feeling brave, you can also switch to "Interactive" and sculpt the face with your mouse.

    -Once you get the character set up as a dial on whatever Daz figure you are using, only dial it up to around 60-70%, it will tend to look cartoony at 100%. Compensate for overly fat faces by dialing the "FaceRound" morph to a negative value (whatever looks good), and compensate for overly skinny faces by dialing it to a positive value.

    Post edited by Odaa on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Although the terms have changed and the morphs are distributable. Owner copyright still prevales if you use someone else's images to generate the texture, it's like a mirror of the Daz TOS where you can use their model to create a 2d image for commercial use but not a 3d model. With facegen you could use someone else's images as the basis of the morph file but not the texture derived from them for commercial use.

    If you are using your own photos or just using the other ones for your your own non-commercial art and in no way defaming the person in their use, then you should be fine. If you were distributing or selling them, then creating your own textures from scratch will always look better anyway.

    Sorry, as nice as it would be to say you can copyright what someone looks like you can't. Only one's identity can be copyrighted. So physical appearance is not equal to one's identity. Think of it this way: there is a lot more on your driver's license or passport than your picture.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276

    Although the terms have changed and the morphs are distributable. Owner copyright still prevales if you use someone else's images to generate the texture, it's like a mirror of the Daz TOS where you can use their model to create a 2d image for commercial use but not a 3d model. With facegen you could use someone else's images as the basis of the morph file but not the texture derived from them for commercial use.

    If you are using your own photos or just using the other ones for your your own non-commercial art and in no way defaming the person in their use, then you should be fine. If you were distributing or selling them, then creating your own textures from scratch will always look better anyway.

    Sorry, as nice as it would be to say you can copyright what someone looks like you can't. Only one's identity can be copyrighted. So physical appearance is not equal to one's identity. Think of it this way: there is a lot more on your driver's license or passport than your picture.

    I think he's talking about using someone elses's photographs to create the texture. Photos can and usually are copyright to the photographer.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Although the terms have changed and the morphs are distributable. Owner copyright still prevales if you use someone else's images to generate the texture, it's like a mirror of the Daz TOS where you can use their model to create a 2d image for commercial use but not a 3d model. With facegen you could use someone else's images as the basis of the morph file but not the texture derived from them for commercial use.

    If you are using your own photos or just using the other ones for your your own non-commercial art and in no way defaming the person in their use, then you should be fine. If you were distributing or selling them, then creating your own textures from scratch will always look better anyway.

    Sorry, as nice as it would be to say you can copyright what someone looks like you can't. Only one's identity can be copyrighted. So physical appearance is not equal to one's identity. Think of it this way: there is a lot more on your driver's license or passport than your picture.

    I think he's talking about using someone elses's photographs to create the texture. Photos can and usually are copyright to the photographer.

    Thanks. That is true. Creating a facegen from a photo must not include the source photo but that photo can be used, just like you can paint a picture based off the photo.

  • Griffin AvidGriffin Avid Posts: 3,755

    @odaa I had to say that was an awesome post. Very concise and helpful.

    Add added to my Big Document of tips and tricks

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,276
    avxp said:

    @odaa I had to say that was an awesome post. Very concise and helpful.

     

    +1 Those are really helpful tips, @odaa - Thank you! :)

    I don't have Facegen yet, but I plan on getting it when I can. 

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