Getting an error message “FaceShop closed before it could create the necessary files …” Anybody know what’s going on or how to fix it? First time to run Headshop 9.2 for Mac so I have no background whatsoever with HS …

I've got poser 10 on my old desktop has the ability to import face photos/textures onto the characters like headshop and others never really gave it much of a chance really fely more comfortable with daz and to me even back then daz had way more better looking  content which is probably why you always see poser users wanting more daz content being poser compatible there are a lot of places that sell poser content btw just gotta find it but poser does have a lot of direct links to many of these stores in the program. I also find the controls in daz a lot easier to use than poser but again I never really put much time into it as another reason I didn't was it kept on crashing on me

This is great to know.  I've been hand sculpting meshes to make custom characters from photos.  It's OK, but I'm not the best artist in the world.  Hoping Headshop will help me get more accurate character meshes.  It's not cheap though.  Oh well....

It will be much cheaper ($39.95) when OneClick will publish at DAZ:-)

This is great to know.  I've been hand sculpting meshes to make custom characters from photos.  It's OK, but I'm not the best artist in the world.  Hoping Headshop will help me get more accurate character meshes.  It's not cheap though.  Oh well....

It creates a morph geometry, I believe by measuring light intensity to estimate the depth of a face's surface and then creating a morph from that. I agree it's mostly impractical in most cases that you will be able to get a usable texture from the photo the Headshop used to create the face morph. You are better using a DAZ bought texture that most closely matching your character's skin tone and if need be, adding identifying marks like moles and such in Gimp or Photoshop or the Image Editor of you choice and DAZ Studio L.I.E. 

The Headshop author has a new easier product coming out called OneClick (it's not in the DAZ Store yet) but you'll still have the texture matching problem you spoke of. For really unique faces it's usually not going to be a big problem but for characters that have similar facial structures then skin tone and blemishes become much more important.

I've been looking at Headshop for some time.  My problem is that it is not clear what it does exactly.

It looks like it just bakes a photo into a generic shader image for a face.  This wouldn't be very useful in Daz as it wouldn't match the body skin texture at all.

Can Headshop create an accurate 3d mesh that one could import and apply any standard Daz texture to?

Thanks for the info, ill will check these out.

Oh, was the second link going to be a Face Gen link, as the one here is the same headshop link??

Headshop (http://www.daz3d.com/headshop-10-win) purports to do this but some problems have been reported

There is also FaceGen which is a standalone program  but may work better:  http://www.daz3d.com/headshop-10-win  

Personally I think there would be hundreds or probably thousands of DS users who would give their right arm to produce a realistic rendition of their favourite famous personality. The fact the galleries are devoid of any such renders using FS or HS suggests that to date they've all but given up attempting to do so. I wish One Click the very best of luck, but I'm not exactly holding my breath in anticipation by results so far with these programs.

I think you're right.  I've seen really good results while in Facegen and Headshop both.  The translation to G2 seems to be where that perfect likeness changes.  I'm generally fine with that, since I'm just trying to get the general shape of a face and use it to create new characters.  But, it would be fun to get an exact match some of the time.

But aside from celebrity face matching, both programs are really cool simple face modelers.  That tends to get overlooked, since that's not how these programs are marketed.

One-Click is a simpler to use with fewer bugs version of Headshop. I had Faceshop 7.x at one time but due to having to pay full upgrade price to go to Faceshop 9 and owning FaceGen Pro 1.9 I decided not to buy it. However the results from One Clink look bug free enough and good enough and cheap enough that I will buy One Click. It remains to be seen which results I will prefer - One Click's or FaceGen's. I'm pretty happy with FaceGen when I can get a good enough picture & place the dots precisely - even with frontal only pictures. 

Actually, I usually get better results with the Front Only approach and then morphing to match profile.  When I try to use profiles, the forehead often gets a weird neanderthal brow shape, and when exported to G2, looks like the head is wearing a mask.  I'm not sure why.  

The biggest downside I can see to One Click is the loss of those auto generated body textures in Facegen.  Those literally can knock hours off of texture editing time in Photoshop.  I have enough MR skins.  But, it still takes a fair amount of time to match colors to a seamless look.

Aside from that, I'm hesitant to buy another upgrade to Headshop after already spending the money for 9 and 10.  

One-Click is a simpler to use with fewer bugs version of Headshop. I had Faceshop 7.x at one time but due to having to pay full upgrade price to go to Faceshop 9 and owning FaceGen Pro 1.9 I decided not to buy it. However the results from One Clink look bug free enough and good enough and cheap enough that I will buy One Click. It remains to be seen which results I will prefer - One Click's or FaceGen's. I'm pretty happy with FaceGen when I can get a good enough picture & place the dots precisely - even with frontal only pictures. 

Sorry, I missed your earlier reply. I need to sub this thread for FaceGen & Headshop / One-Click tips.

Well I'm buying the new one-click to try out because I like the auto-placement with one-click feature. I am still happy with FaceGen but I have trouble selecting the points on the photos and as noted about it can make a big difference in the morph. Also, noted above the FaceGen morph obj is a better likeness than the DAZ Morph and that's because the FaceGen program must do a sort of automated retopology so that the FaceGen morph obj model topology matched the DAZ Genesis / Genesis 2 / Genesis face topology.

If you were after the best likeness possible you'd take the FaceGen obj into Blender or Maya and attach to an existing model or model by adding to the FaceGen obj. 

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'm not really good with Blender yet.  But, I might still give this a try.  The "exact likeness" isn't so much of an issue as is predictable results - meaning, I'd like to know how the face will look on the G2/G3 before I export to Daz.  This isn't a deal breaker at all.  But, it would be nice to be able to adjust things beforehand in order to avoid quite so much post work in Daz.

I just did a search on "One Click" and found that thread.  So, HS is developing a similar to Facegen type of software that you don't have to pick points.  That is very interesting.  After reading that thread, it doesn't sound like One Click will help much over Facegen except for the auto texture placement and dropping the point placement step.  I am very curious to see the results.  I might give it a try if there is a really good price break for current HS users.  I like HS when it works.  It's just such a buggy program.  It's funny that Abalone mentions "you can't screw up."  I realize that there is a lot of user error in HS.  But, that doesn't excuse the fact that the program itself is very crash prone and can be hard to navigate.  If the new One Click is stable, that will certainly be an upgrade.  But, I think they will have a problem by not offering the auto and hi res textures capability of FG.  Those ready made whole body textures are a huge time saver even without auto placement.

I do think that Facegen could do a better job with tutorials.  It's very easy to use.  But, I would like some more advanced tutorials and tips and tricks from the manufacturer to explain "best placement" of the face points to get the most accurate mesh.  I've noticed that slight changes of the points can produce very different results.  What I would really like is a combination of Auto Point Placement like OneClick is advertising and Point Tweaking similar to what is currently available in HS10.2, in order to be able to fix texture errors (like nostrils being slightly off) and shaping.  The shaping morphs do a really good job as is.  But, it would be nice to be able to do the point tweaks.

Sorry, I missed your earlier reply. I need to sub this thread for FaceGen & Headshop / One-Click tips.

Well I'm buying the new one-click to try out because I like the auto-placement with one-click feature. I am still happy with FaceGen but I have trouble selecting the points on the photos and as noted about it can make a big difference in the morph. Also, noted above the FaceGen morph obj is a better likeness than the DAZ Morph and that's because the FaceGen program must do a sort of automated retopology so that the FaceGen morph obj model topology matched the DAZ Genesis / Genesis 2 / Genesis face topology.

If you were after the best likeness possible you'd take the FaceGen obj into Blender or Maya and attach to an existing model or model by adding to the FaceGen obj. 

. The only other knock against it is that while the app is easy to use, once the face is created, you must apply the textures yourself in the surface tab. 

True - But, I really like how FG actually makes a very easy texture folder for you.  And, the FG textures are much more complete in that they do their best to match the face to the head, etc.  I've place many of these textures now.  You'd still have to place any body textures with Headshop.  The only automatic ones are the face and lips. 

So, here's the quickest method I've come up with:

I pinned my Facegen folder to the Explorer quick links.  So, I only have to do a couple of clicks to get to my "Facegen/Genesis 2/Leila 1 (or whichever)" folder and select which of the four textures I need - eyes, face, limbs, torso.  

I go to the "surfaces" tab under Genesis 2 Female in Daz and starting with "ears," I click on the diffuse texture and select browse.  Then, I navigate to the "Leila 1" folder and pick the textorso file.  Now, the textorso file will be available in the quick list that comes up when you click on the diffuse texture button.

Then, I go to "face" under the surfaces selections after pushing the diffuse button, I select textorso from the quick list.  THEN, I push the diffuse button again and select "browse."  This takes me to the folder where the textorso file is located without having to navigate back to the Facegen folder.  This time I select the correct "texface" file.  Now that file is also in the quick list.

I do the same process for the "feet" surface, selecting the texface or textorso file to get me back to the right folder, then browse and select the correct "texlimbs."  This puts texlimbs in the quick list as well.

The same goes for the "texeyes" when I get to the irises surface.

This means that by using this shortcut method, I can put all the FG diffuse textures on the appropriate surfaces in about 2 minutes.  It's really simple once you get the hang of doing it this way.

Of course, if I go to the trouble of creating custom bump maps or displacement maps, this process can be a lot more time consuming.  But, it's still pretty easy.

My one complaint about the way FG generates textures is the naming.  It would be nice if it automatically named the texture files by using your FG filename i.e. instead of "textorso" it would be "Leila_1_torso."  That seems to me to be an easy sort of thing to add into the export script.  Even so, it's not too difficult to rename the textures.  It would just be a help if FG did it automatically.

Hope this helps!

I bought Facegen Artist Home and love it enough that I'm going to upgrade to pro next paycheck. :)  I second the loving that FG gives you good working textures based on the face color.  This helps immensely when trying out new characters.  Any character that I decide to complete, gets a rework of the textures with merchant resources to patch up skin problems or make a low res photo texture into a high res version.  It can take many hours to edit a texture, but when you are finished, you have a new original texture that has the characteristics of the original face but turning it into your own work.  That initial color approximation for the FG textures is very helpful in starting a new skin.

Another great aspect of FG is the license, good for any number of machines for 1 user.  This is very important to me as I work at home and also while traveling.  Also, FG states very clearly that any:

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

That is awesome...and sensible on the part of the publisher.  Because there's really no way to track a derivative morph once it's been exported and reimported as a new morph target...at least, not that I know of.  I try to use all MR or otherwise free use morphs on all my characters.  It's just much simpler than doing morphs on top of other commercial morphs.  And, I don't have to worry about who's work I might be including.  I plan to start adding variatons based on the G2 and G3 morph bundles, just so I can add that for a Daz feature.  I believe they like products that have other purchase requirements.

I personally really like merchant resources as bases for skin textures.  I can go through and add little color variations, skin tone, etc. to get a new character skin.  Most characters don't need really unique skins.  Except for distinguishing marks, I couldn't really tell the difference on many characters.  The real character changers are things like eyebrows, lips, makeup, and eye color.   So, a few base skins along with these distinguishers is all that I need for a whole bunch of different characters.  While I'm on this topic, I really want to plug Hinkypunk's Build-a-Babe Photoshop template and texture.  I use it for both G3 and G2 characters.  It took me a while to build up a G2 set based off the Living Doll merchant resource that I got off Renderosity.  But, it was worth the effort.  Because, I can now use bits for both G3 and G2 depending on how much editing I want to do.

To edit an FG texture, I just have to drag it into Photoshop, resize it to 4096, and copy and paste it into the Build-a-Babe as a new layer.  Then, it can be edited just like any other merchant resource.

Downside to FG - the face shapes often don't look the same once imported into Daz.  I don't really know why this is.  But, I can have something that I think, "Wow, that's a perfect likeness!" in FG, only to have it look much less like the original in Daz.  This isn't all bad.  It's just more work to get the shape right.  I've also noticed that whether or not a profile photo is helpful is variable.  I mean, sometimes the profile pic really helps the shape output.  Other times, it's seems to confuse the program and output something that really doesn't look like the original at all.  I don't know why. Also, noses tend to be the same triangular shape on initial output.  I almost always have to use the shaping morphs to change the nose.

I often export an FG face, view it in Daz, then go back and redo it in FG, trying to alter dot placement to get an output that looks better in Daz.  It's time consuming...but still a lot less trouble than learning how to model in Blender.  As long as I get the basic characteristics of the model photo that I was going for, I don't mind if it's not an exact match.  After all, I'm trying to create new characters, not duplicates.  I often get a result that is better than what I was trying for, even if it doesn't resemble the original model.

I have noticed that young faces are the most problematic.  This is either because of how FG exports or how Daz imports and adjusts to fit G2.  Even if I were to put a toddler's face onto a G2 figure, it would still look like the figure were in its 20's.  So, there's a lot of morphing to do after the import.  I believe this is because Daz is trying to adapt a fairly extreme morph to a very standard figure.  

Also (nothing to do with Facegen), I have not yet figured out how to do characters of varying heights without screwing up the joint geometry.  I can scale after the fact.  But, unless my figure meshes are exported at normal G2 height, it comes back a complete nightmare morph.  It will import and look okay until you try to pose...Then, the results are crazy.  I guess I need a tutorial on doing new bone structures or something so my 5' Asian figures can be loaded as such instead of doing post scaling.

Anyway, that's my mini review of Facegen.  It essentially has very similar function as Headshop.  I wish it integrated some of what Headshop does into itself, as I like being able to use shape dots to correct texture and shape.  FG is more automatic.  You place the initial 11 points, then FG generates its best approximation.  You can't really correct texture once that's in place.  You either got it right first go, or you have to redo the whole thing.  Fortunately, redoing the whole thing isn't that hard.  FG is by far less buggy than HS.  It doesn't crash all the time or have mysterious menu selections that don't seem to function.  I can make 4 reasonable FG morphs in the time it takes me to do 1 in HS.  If HS was less crash prone and had more predictable results when using the various tools, I would not have bothered with Facegen.  However, I'm very glad that I made the decision to go ahead and get Facegen as well.  It is far less frustrating to use.  One other thing I didn't mention before is that FG is very good at dealing with photos that are not perfect face forward, hair back shots.  By placing the point in proper relation to where they should be on a face, you can still get a decent morph and texture.  It is definitely not as good as the best case face forward shot.  But, it will work.

I hope this helps others looking into both software packages.  I wasn't able to find much 3rd party info about either one in my online searching, other than on this forum.

will it auto install in any and all versions of daz or do we have to manually configure it copy paste files of faceshop/headshop into each daz version with each daz update, previously when a new version of either full daz or beta was released we had to copy files into certain folders still using HS9 which is working in the last Daz 4.9 full build but is not showing up in the latest beta and probably same when the new full build comes out so if I want to use HS right now I have to create save in previous Daz full build then start up the new beta so I can use iray with my 1080 cards s yeah would this install into the new beta or the previous full build

I have a quick question

Is this "stand-alone" or do I first need to purchase HeadShop?

It IS HeadShop. You only need DAZ Studio to run OneClick.

How is it Headshop when you posted earlier that for more options (larger texture resolution) you need the actual Headshop 10.2 product. so based on what I am reading, OneClick is actually Headshop LITE meaning is has some of the funcionality of the actual Headshop product, but not all and to get all the features you need Headshop 10.2, correct? Or deas OneClick replace Headshop

 

 

Yes, at DAZ this will be the only HeadShop you can buy. The point was NOT to create a HeadShop Light, but to eliminate even the slightest possibility of users messing up. This meant to automate everything and simplify user interface through automation. HeadShop 10.2 also had many redundancies with Studio (adding hair, accessories, color - all of which you can do in Studio). We took out redundancies but kept advanced options such as profile, which may be important to a smaller number of users.

The bottom line is that this product represents a giant leap in performance and ease-of-use.

I have a quick question

Is this "stand-alone" or do I first need to purchase HeadShop?

It IS HeadShop. You only need DAZ Studio to run OneClick.

Sweet! I don't know what all headshop does, but I assumed it was something to do with making morphs from pictures and if all I need is this software to do the same in 1 click, then it's going in the wishlist asap :)

I have a quick question

Is this "stand-alone" or do I first need to purchase HeadShop?

It IS HeadShop. You only need DAZ Studio to run OneClick.

How is it Headshop when you posted earlier that for more options (larger texture resolution) you need the actual Headshop 10.2 product. so based on what I am reading, OneClick is actually Headshop LITE meaning is has some of the funcionality of the actual Headshop product, but not all and to get all the features you need Headshop 10.2, correct? Or deas OneClick replace Headshop

The current version exports 1024x1024, because it aims of the casual user who in all likelyhood won't have a high-res to begin with. For hard-core users I recommend HeadShop 10.2, which does have 2048x2048 plus a lot more tools.

And does it output greater than 2048x2048; pointless if it doesn't.

I can't get excited until you answer this.....

The current version exports 1024x1024, because it aims of the casual user who in all likelyhood won't have a high-res to begin with. For hard-core users I recommend HeadShop 10.2, which does have 2048x2048 plus a lot more tools.

Unfortunately on both softwares, I fear that you have once again seriously underestimated the market's expectations, casual or otherwise. 4096 is standard these days, and offered by orlthers such as face gen.