FaceRig USER GUIDE (Update 2021)

[Pierre Schiller]

Hi, community.
After 7 long years since I came to know and use FaceRig, one of the biggest challenges I've found most of the users have is the User Guide. I know it is a very frustrating experience to open that pdf and most of the time you have no idea what you need to do to create your own models, textures, effects or custom config trigger files.

I know because I was one of those 3d artists but didn't know how to pilot the software properly. I emailed the Holotech Studios' support team many times, barely scratching the surface on the potential of the software. I bought the expansion pack for characters for Android with the Live2D characters back in 2015. I was so happy when those companies made partners for the first time.

After I've tried all other streamming Avatar softwares, I decided to review the User Guide to see if I can -for the last time- make sense out of it. We needed a 2021 update on the user guide for FaceRig, and I am putting all hard effort to rewrite it.

The Official Discord channel for Animaze (I was a beta tester back in 2019) and FaceRig, mentioned that they would be happy to reference the link I will be providing in the next days for everyone to read in a clear and easy terminology what FaceRig requires to ingest your 3D models, actions and more.

I've been a Blender Foundation Certified Trainer for the past 4 years and it's a great experience to show how artists with experience in other softwares relate to Blender quickly because the methods I use to describe workflows. That being said, most of the 3D artists will find this new 2021 FaceRig guide, easy to follow and apply the concepts needed to continue to use what I think opened the Streaming era back in 2015: FaceRig.

Let me know if you have requests or thoughts for this guide.
Thank you.
Pîerre.

[Sue]

While I appreciate your idea, but don't you think you're better off making guides for something that has a better future, like, Animaze maybe? Facerig is going to be deprecated later this year, the devs are spending all their development work on Animaze, which makes this effort is quite pointless if you ask me.

I know some people might don't like Animaze business model and will get hold of Facerig as long as they can, but the truth is from technical standpoint Facerig is outdated by today standard. Personally I wouldn't recommend Facerig these days, unless you really want to use a specific avatar they have.

[Pierre Schiller]

Awesome. I appreciate this comment of yours. I was thinking how profitable (in terms of spreading knowledge) this might be. I figured if there was not a way for people to understand the CORE FEATURES of Facerig, how would they expect a better ANIMAZE?
I don't know how versed you are in the ANIMAZE Editor, (I haven't read the docs throughly, yet), but how would you configure fur? Did you know FaceRig had an "eye pupil dilation" function? -Me neither until I cracked the cryptic language that user guide is written in by any 3d artist authoring standard as of 2015 or 2021...

I agree it's quite complex and big to generate a character in FaceRig, I hope Animaze streams this process a little bit better. So far, seing how Animaze editor handles the viewport draw calls, makes me wonder about how well the users are giving back input for developers. (on the same note open a GLTF model in a browser and runs and pans speedier)....

The only way I see users can give better feedback about Animaze is by understanding the core functions of the application... where could they possible look for answers?
...oh yeah... the user guide for FaceRig seems to be a good point to start....

[q00rt]

Awesome. I appreciate this comment of yours. I was thinking how profitable (in terms of spreading knowledge) this might be. I figured if there was not a way for people to understand the CORE FEATURES of Facerig, how would they expect a better ANIMAZE?

[Pierre Schiller]

Indeed! And the most impressive function is about hair. Thus is the most cryptic one in the guide. I was experimenting and transcode everything so anyone could read (at least with a 3d lingo) and know what it is required to generate proper fur.