had some fun scripting recently, finally got a chance to polish my python skills. Im doing a small python script addon that imports kinect facial animation data into blender.
The facial data is captured from Brekel’s face tracking software named “Brekel Kinect Pro Face”, the software tracks/records facial points/movements and creates data that can be used for simulating facial animations.
The software exports float variables labeled as “Animation Units” these units are designed to be used for driving facial shapes/morphs created in a 3D software package. In our case, Blender Shapekeys.
each of the units has corresponding name and value, the names are pretty much self explanatory
blender users can use these to determine the type of shapekeys needed for their models as well as use it to drive the created shapes.
As of now the creation of facial shape drivers are done by hand, ill be writing a script soon that can apply these units as drivers to shapes effortlessly.
An additional button at the sidepanel perhaps.
Apart from the animation units I also managed to Import the “head frame data”, this contains the tracked data obtained from the head’s rotation and location movements .
The data was applied to an “Empty” and can be used to constrain the rotation / location of the head.
here on this example I used it on blender’s most beloved test monkey “Suzzane”
___________________________________________________________________________
Download:
finally here’s the import script addon>> brekel_addon.zip
the script is not done yet, there’s still a few more stuff to be done and I still have to import the tracked facial points.
you can already import the “Animation Units” and the head movements with the script.
For those who doesnt have access to kinect sensors, Ive included there the exported test file i used for the monkey. More test files can be found within Brekel’s site.
___________________________________________________________________________
Links:
for more info about the Brekel Face software please head on to this site
Blender can be found here
downloads for Brekel Face are available within Brekel’s website, just search for it at the right panel. There are Installers for 32 and 64 bit systems. As for me, I was lucky enough to aquire a Licence straight from Brekel for doing this script. Thanks man, really appreciate it.
full tutorial on Blender/Brekel Face workflow coming soon
Marwin'sThings 