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Creating Custom Facial Motion Capture in Maya

by Ron Friedman

Throughout these Maya tutorials, we'll go through the process of creating custom 3D facial character animation using After Effects, Matchmover 2014, and Maya 2014. Software required: After Effects CC, Matchmover 2014, Maya 2014, Tracksperanto.

What you'll learn

Throughout these Maya tutorials, we'll go through the process of creating custom 3D facial character animation using After Effects, Matchmover 2014, and Maya 2014. We'll discuss the history of facial mocap animation, the concerns of using facial motion capture in relation to keyframe animation, planning the reference points for the face, recording the full body reference and the facial reference footage, cleaning up the facial reference footage in After Effects, tracking the reference points in Matchmover 2014, exporting the Matchmover tracking information using Tracksperanto, importing the motion capture data into Maya 2014, tying the tracking information to the facial animation controllers, and creating the full body animation to supplement our facial motion capture performance. By the end of this Maya training, you'll have a more thorough understanding of how to create custom facial motion capture animation in an effective yet inexpensive way. Software required: After Effects CC, Matchmover 2014, Maya 2014, Tracksperanto.

About the author

Ron comes from a performance background with over 21 years of experience as a Character Animator. Starting in traditional 2D animation, Ron made the conversion to 3D along with the rest of the industry and has never looked back. He has worked in Feature Animation (Pagemaster, Swan Princess), Visual Effects Animation for Film (Van Helsing, Lemony Snicket, The Mist, Snakes On A Plane), and Videogame Animation (Robot Rising, Immortal City, City Of Heroes, Adam Blaster) and was Animation Supervisor ... more

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