Hi. A staff member mentioned back in July that a face rigger was in the works to go with the auto rigger that was introduced with Houdini 16. Should users like me expect to see the feature be released later this year? If so, then will the auto rigger's capabilities be expanded as well to allow users to create complex animal rigs?

cb
We will be looking into providing facial rigs in the future, yes.

Cristin

WaterBirdx2
Hi. A staff member mentioned back in July that a face rigger was in the works to go with the auto rigger that was introduced with Houdini 16. Should users like me expect to see the feature be released later this year? If so, then will the auto rigger's capabilities be expanded as well to allow users to create complex animal rigs?

cb
We will be looking into providing facial rigs in the future, yes.

Cristin

My quote says that we're looking at providing a facial rig in the future, not that one is in the works

Ideally, one would be in the works already – there's obvious demand for it and we intended to add one from the very start. Unfortunately, polishing the existing auto-rigs has kept us too busy to seriously tackle facial rigging. Between adding quadruped support to the auto-rigging system and pushing hard on the muscle and flesh project, I doubt that we will have the cycles to release an official facial rig by the end of this year. We have started researching various approaches to it, and the ideal solution is not as straightforward as one might hope. The most we can hope for at this point is to share with you some facial rigging examples by year-end, then see in what direction to take them in 2018.

Cristin

cb

WaterBirdx2
Hi. A staff member mentioned back in July that a face rigger was in the works to go with the auto rigger that was introduced with Houdini 16. Should users like me expect to see the feature be released later this year? If so, then will the auto rigger's capabilities be expanded as well to allow users to create complex animal rigs?

cb
We will be looking into providing facial rigs in the future, yes.

Cristin

My quote says that we're looking at providing a facial rig in the future, not that one is in the works

Ideally, one would be in the works already – there's obvious demand for it and we intended to add one from the very start. Unfortunately, polishing the existing auto-rigs has kept us too busy to seriously tackle facial rigging. Between adding quadruped support to the auto-rigging system and pushing hard on the muscle and flesh project, I doubt that we will have the cycles to release an official facial rig by the end of this year. We have started researching various approaches to it, and the ideal solution is not as straightforward as one might hope. The most we can hope for at this point is to share with you some facial rigging examples by year-end, then see in what direction to take them in 2018.

Cristin

My apologizes for the misunderstanding.

But I really appreciate the fact that you replied to my question in such detail. This info will go a long way in helping me to stay organized while waiting for these developments to come into fruition. Although I'm not quite sure what the “flesh project” that you mentioned could be used for. Would you say that this “flesh” feature may be applicable to the creation of creature rigs with “fleshy” wings, such as dragons, once it's functional? Or that the auto-rigger could handle doing winged rigs once it is more polished, as you said?

In any case, thank you very much for the heads up, and keep up the good work!

'flesh' refers to the FEM muscle/fat/skin workflows…

Face rigging is, as Cristin mentioned, something that we're looking into, but as there are a number of approaches/techniques used and users that have different needs we need to do the proper RnD.
If you have needs/suggestions/ideas please submit them as RFEs!

arctor
'flesh' refers to the FEM muscle/fat/skin workflows…

Face rigging is, as Cristin mentioned, something that we're looking into, but as there are a number of approaches/techniques used and users that have different needs we need to do the proper RnD.
If you have needs/suggestions/ideas please submit them as RFEs!

I see. Considering how fine-tuned the rigging systems that the major film studios have developed appear to be in BRoll videos, that definitely makes sense. Thanks for the suggestion about RFEs, and I will be looking forward to your future software updates, whenever they may be!

quote=cb]

WaterBirdx2
Hi. A staff member mentioned back in July that a face rigger was in the works to go with the auto rigger that was introduced with Houdini 16. Should users like me expect to see the feature be released later this year? If so, then will the auto rigger's capabilities be expanded as well to allow users to create complex animal rigs?

cb
We will be looking into providing facial rigs in the future, yes.

Cristin

My quote says that we're looking at providing a facial rig in the future, not that one is in the works

Ideally, one would be in the works already – there's obvious demand for it and we intended to add one from the very start. Unfortunately, polishing the existing auto-rigs has kept us too busy to seriously tackle facial rigging. Between adding quadruped support to the auto-rigging system and pushing hard on the muscle and flesh project, I doubt that we will have the cycles to release an official facial rig by the end of this year. We have started researching various approaches to it, and the ideal solution is not as straightforward as one might hope. The most we can hope for at this point is to share with you some facial rigging examples by year-end, then see in what direction to take them in 2018.

Cristin

arctor
'flesh' refers to the FEM muscle/fat/skin workflows…

Face rigging is, as Cristin mentioned, something that we're looking into, but as there are a number of approaches/techniques used and users that have different needs we need to do the proper RnD.
If you have needs/suggestions/ideas please submit them as RFEs!

Hey guys. Congratulations on completing Houdini 16.5! It looks incredible and I can't wait to upgrade my edition of Houdini Indie to it next week. Only now I am rather curious as to how customizable the new face rigger can be. At this point in time, can it do things like:

1) Animate various parts of the face like the mouth, nose, and eyebrows?
2) Connect geometry besides eyeballs to the head like teeth and a tongue?
3) Create lip-sync animation if I import an audio file into the program and connect the audio file's wave data to some facial blend-shapes?

WaterBirdx2
Hey guys. Congratulations on completing Houdini 16.5! It looks incredible and I can't wait to upgrade my edition of Houdini Indie to it next week. Only now I am rather curious as to how customizable the new face rigger can be. At this point in time, can it do things like:

1) Animate various parts of the face like the mouth, nose, and eyebrows?
2) Connect geometry besides eyeballs to the head like teeth and a tongue?
3) Create lip-sync animation if I import an audio file into the program and connect the audio file's wave data to some facial blend-shapes?

The Basic Face module added to the Autorigs in H16.5 is just that - Basic.
It will allow you to rig the Jaw - with options for rotation in xyz and well as translation in xyz.
It will also enable you to rig the eyes - lids, upper and lower, and a lookat control.

It should be fairly easy to expand on that for more features yourself, but the creation of a face rig of the kind you're asking for is a very large project and while we have some initial plans in this area I can't say when this would happen.
If you're wanting to build a face rig like this most tutorials on face rigging will be applicable to Houdini - so give it a try and ask any questions you might have here.

arctor

WaterBirdx2
Hey guys. Congratulations on completing Houdini 16.5! It looks incredible and I can't wait to upgrade my edition of Houdini Indie to it next week. Only now I am rather curious as to how customizable the new face rigger can be. At this point in time, can it do things like:

1) Animate various parts of the face like the mouth, nose, and eyebrows?
2) Connect geometry besides eyeballs to the head like teeth and a tongue?
3) Create lip-sync animation if I import an audio file into the program and connect the audio file's wave data to some facial blend-shapes?

The Basic Face module added to the Autorigs in H16.5 is just that - Basic.
It will allow you to rig the Jaw - with options for rotation in xyz and well as translation in xyz.
It will also enable you to rig the eyes - lids, upper and lower, and a lookat control.

It should be fairly easy to expand on that for more features yourself, but the creation of a face rig of the kind you're asking for is a very large project and while we have some initial plans in this area I can't say when this would happen.
If you're wanting to build a face rig like this most tutorials on face rigging will be applicable to Houdini - so give it a try and ask any questions you might have here.

I see. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions arctor. Customizing the face rig myself now sounds like it could be pretty fun to do. The men from the 16.5 unveiling video also mentioned that new video tutorials were being made to go with all of the program's new features. Would specific tips on how to customize the basic face rigger be something appropriate for you guys to consider including with the video tutorials for the new feature?

WaterBirdx2
Would specific tips on how to customize the basic face rigger be something appropriate for you guys to consider including with the video tutorials for the new feature?

The rigging tutorials will cover building a basic biped (rigging and capture)
A tutorial on building a basic face rig is on the list - but given the wide range of face rigs and needs I can't see a single tutorial or series being able to cover everything. I expect the face rigging tutorial to cover the basics with bones and blendshapes, but not much more than that at first.

arctor

WaterBirdx2
Would specific tips on how to customize the basic face rigger be something appropriate for you guys to consider including with the video tutorials for the new feature?

The rigging tutorials will cover building a basic biped (rigging and capture)
A tutorial on building a basic face rig is on the list - but given the wide range of face rigs and needs I can't see a single tutorial or series being able to cover everything. I expect the face rigging tutorial to cover the basics with bones and blendshapes, but not much more than that at first.

That sounds reasonable. Using blendshapes and null objects to customize the basic face rig would be my first preference anyway. Thanks again for clearing that up!