Transplanting Face Rig

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WuHT
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Transplanting Face Rig

Post by WuHT »

I'm attempting to make xps models converted from gmod files (back ground link here http://www.xnalara.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1491)

I've made progress to the point where I have a model in xps http://www.mediafire.com/file/q421ggr64 ... egfried.7z that can be posed except for the face. I understand that the SMD files inherently don't have facial bones which I would like to have.

So far I think I have 2 options:

1) Somehow "transplant" the existing face skeleton from a similar model over. I don't know if transplanting is the correct term though. The model I'm working on is Soul Calibur 5 Siegfried so ideally it would be very similar to the Soul Calibur 4 Siegfried which the full xps (with working facial bones) can be found online. My question is whether there is a straight forward way to "superimpose" the SC4 Siegfried face bones onto the SC5 Siegfried's upper neck via Blender? Keep in mind I have about a grand total of 2-3 hours experience on Blender (and I find even the basic camera and model manipulation controls very unintuitive and different from XPS) so I may not understand any suggestions.

2) On Xps do a meshmod of the SC4 Siegfried's working head and attach that over to a headless SC5 Siegfried. I'm just concerned about the quality of such meshmod because the neck mesh doesn't always appear to line up correctly. Playing around with the diffuse textures is much lower on the priority for me. Nevertheless I've done this method on SC4 Cervantes to SC5 Cervantes so I was thinking if there was a better method.

A custom face rig is well beyond my capabilities.

One thing I 've noticed going from MDL to SMD to XPS is that the textures need to be flipped upside down. I've been manually doing this for each texture so my bonus question is whether there is a batch method for flipping .tga files?
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I appreciate all help provided
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Dazzy
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Re: Transplanting Face Rig

Post by Dazzy »

You can bone weight copy the SC4 version to the SC5, but that depends on how the face meshes line up. If they are pretty much the same or even exactly the same then it will make everything easier. Though, SC5 models can be gotten with face bones, have you tried getting the original files themselves? Rigging something when you can get original bones for it isn't the best idea xD
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WuHT
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Sep 30, 2013 11:42 pm
Custom Rank: Soul Calibur Fan

Re: Transplanting Face Rig

Post by WuHT »

Dazzy wrote:You can bone weight copy the SC4 version to the SC5, but that depends on how the face meshes line up. If they are pretty much the same or even exactly the same then it will make everything easier.
cool. do you know of any beginner level tutorials to bone weight copy ?

Though, SC5 models can be gotten with face bones, have you tried getting the original files themselves? Rigging something when you can get original bones for it isn't the best idea xD
I'm all ears if you know how i can obtain the SC5 game files :D I also wondered how SC:LS and SC5 models were ported so quickly in a small window back in like 2014-2015.
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I appreciate all help provided
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Dazzy
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Re: Transplanting Face Rig

Post by Dazzy »

Bone weight copy is simple, I don't know any tutorial but it's easy to explain. The model you are planning to rig has to have no vertex groups, you can remove them by pressing the highlighted button until no name appears in the drop down box:
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Then you have both of the faces on the same layer, select them both and do this:
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In the box that appears change Quality to 2 and press Ok, it may take some time depending on the quality of the meshes and amount of weights. You will then have to learn how to transfer bones, which is simply selecting the bones needed in edit mode and pressing Ctrl+Alt+P to separate them, joining them to the armature that you are working on and parenting to the bones to head neck upper.

Bone weight copy can be extremely buggy, which is why I suggest finding a way to get the original game models as it will make your life a lot easier, but I don't know where to get them unfortunately.
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