ZRT Face Trainer Demonstration | Wrapping Tutorial - Custom Face Preparation

ZRT Face Trainer Demonstration | Wrapping Tutorial - Custom Face Preparation from Puppeteer Lounge on Vimeo.

Here you go! A video going over the entire process of preparing your custom face for training using Ziva Dynamics ZRT Face Trainer!! Bring your custom faces to life with the ZRT Face Trainer. This experimental technology trains any face mesh to perform the most complex facial expressions in real-time using a comprehensive library of 4D data and proprietary machine learning algorithms!

Cartoon Character Animation by Ashish Karmacharya | Student Demo Reel

Character Animation (Advance Body Mechanics) by Puppeteer Lounge student Ashish Karmacharya.

Ziva Rapid Face Trainer Result

So here it is the result from ZRT Face Trainer and below are my thoughts:

Looks like its all blend-shape driven process with a base FACS based logic driven face rig setup. Your base model which is termed as "target mesh" gets converted to match the topology of ZIVA base model (termed as "source model") which I believe already has all the necessary face setups and connections. Once you upload your file to ZRT Face Trainer portal, it takes a few hour for the preview result to be published. During the process of training in my opinion ZIVA Rapid Trainer essentially swap the face through some blend-shape algorithm and possibly face swapping AI similar to deep fake to get the result! This workflow is good for fast output for non real (living) human or CGI generated hyper real model and may not be suitable for CGI digital double. In our case we used our in-house 3D scanned digital double and the result doesn't match the real character in terms of facial expression. For CGI digital double face rig based on actual 3d scans of facial expression of the actor is essential. But anyways this looks promising and in my opinion a GAME CHANGER! Finally the Face Trainer just provides you with a video preview, there is no mesh file, rig file or animation file provided with this early access which is a bummer! As I could have dig deeper and also do a nice little render with custom animation 🙂

Ziva Real Time Face Trainer Access Granted

Looks like we (Puppeteer Lounge) are the first 5500 artists to get our hands on the ZRT Face Trainer. Time to dig in and the process begins with marker setups and wrapping with WRAP3D!

Cartoon Character Rigging by Casandra Johnson | Student Demo Reel

Cartoon Character Rigging by Casandra Johnson | Student Demo Reel from Puppeteer Lounge on Vimeo.

Character Setup (Rigging Workshop 2) by Puppeteer Lounge student Casandra Johnson from Netherlands.