Avatar Face Customization and Animation Systems.
Blendshape Customization to be baked down on to joint animated face. Universal Genderless start point. 1:1 customization Slider set up from Maya to Engine. The general brief, as was distilled, was to make an Avatar that fit into the Pixar, Disney even AAA RPG world that could be style even farther with makeup into an expressive, deformable beautiful. Lead and B Class characters. Accomplished but subsumed.
Everyone thinks they can fix is all after they get static pretty things working first. Sadly this is an untruth.
Almost everyone building these kind of systems today do it wrong. I built one from existing parts that lets you try out all the things that will show up in engine, in Maya first and be something that can be translated directly to engine.
Here in Engine, you can see the parrallel movement and the tearing or un tearing going on. and judge for yourself and then limit the corresponding holisticly created shape targets. You do not need AI or machine learning to do this.
PipelineMethod POC Center Generic Non Binary worked to cleanly make all the other faces. That Core Middle Face by Hustic/Megan Barnes with consult & rework from me. All poses & general Phenotype & gender continuum interp by yours truly
All these simple shaded faces were made and tested from the superlative Generic Gender Neutral Head at the left center, made by Megan Barnes with my consultation and advice... and occasionaly cajoling from tech art guru.
I did all the blendshapes to carry the facial animation testing that you can see in my reel.
Special attention was paid to how distorted things could get and how to not leave teeth far from the cheek as happens with a lot of models, so you get a horsey hanger in there.
Most of the real acting eyebrow and cheek subtlety came through with the work of our tech guru's diligent support.
