Has anyone else had experiance with Faceshop? I am having an terriblel time trying to get texture right when I create a new one they come out looking almost black on the males?

Many thanks Bri

Unfortunately, the program is not as versatile as it should be.  I have had repeated problems getting the results I desired.  Momentarily, it is shelved indefinitely.

Yes I agree I wish I had not bought the wretched thing but the video made it look so simple lol.

Ahhh Faceshop.  Promises so much but delivers so little.

And yet the marketplaces are still happy to sell it. IMO it should never have gotten past the testing as it fails to deliver the marketing blurb.
Sorry, FaceShop just annoys me.

I did not upgade, because the first one was the all time worst product I ever bought.

I've been happier with the latest versions of the software, but it's still far too buggy and troublesome to be a part of regular workflow.

It's not cheap either for what it does(n't) do.

I think I managed to get a total of three morphs and no texture maps between all the crashes.  I got my money back from DAZ on this one.

I've seen several people get good results with it. But I certainly was not one.

I have tried so many times now and it crashes A LOT omg does it crash but the worst is the lack of texture ect.  I could kick myself for not researching more. But as I eat beans all next week because I bought it I will prob just get more aggrivated lol.

Attached Link: FaceShop "Tricks and Tips"

Also, maybe read the "Tricks and Tips":
http://abalonellc.com/faceshop-pro.html
Laslo

I like this app. I know I don't have the most recent version, but I've been well satisfied with it. Any app that helps get rid of any of the Poser characters stock look is a good app in my book.

Sorry guys, but this is not an issue about taking time to learn it, and I never expect a "Make Art" button with any app I use.
There are features in the standalone version of FaceShop4 that just do not reliably work and that cause instability and crashes on a predictable level.
For example, I've never been able to save a file from FS that isn't corrupt and unopenable, whatever figures I'm using.
The mirror function doesn't really work, often creating (when it does work) horribly distorted morphs (and yes, I know it's recommended to dial the resulting morphs at 0.7 - makes no difference, a bad morph is a bad morph).
The texture output (when you get an output) is poor and requires significant reworking to be usable.
Morph export (via export of obj. mesh) is extremely unreliable.
Moving between various options in FS (e.g. positioning points and curves in frontal view and then moving to the profile view & vice-versa) causes corruption of the file and usually crashing.

I'll re-iterate - this is in the standalone version of FS, used in conjunction with Poser 7.
I feel (and I reported such as a user review and as a complaint to Renderosity Marketplace) that this software should not have passed through any kind of testing and certainly shouldn't continue to be sold here - just my opinion.
If the Daz integrated version works ok that's fine, but the standalone version for use with other apps is a complete waste of time IMO, and fails to meet with the marketing claims on the marketplace page.

Anyway, TPTB seem to disagree with my view as it's still sold here. Maybe I am just crazy and wrong.

I agree with carodan at 200 %, unable to have a good morph ...

Ah....Fakeshop or is it FaecesShop? Blasted app is like herpes, just keeps coming back even though it's not something anybody would really want.

Ever noticed it's always the same three tired renders that are used to claim it works as advertised in direct opposition to the much more numerous experiences that it does not?

It's threads like this that make me realize that Poser people just want a "Make Art" button. Pathetic really . . . . :O)

I like Faceshop

I approach  it like a BASE  tool for changing the mesh  though - I dont expect it to be a  "one visit does all"  tool.
I have had great  results starting with Faceshop and then tweaking  aspects to  fine tune them in other aps that  I already  have...... like Poser and W3D.

Faceshop is good.

Its  not that expensive   so  why  moan  about it  if it's not your cup of tea.

to the O.P:

Your texture  looks black?  or  just  kinda  color washed out and dark-

plain  dead  black i cannot answer to,

but if you mean its  really dark-  i suggest  starting with a photo that  was taken  in indirect sunlight as opposed to  flash lit. You  want  a base photo that appears brightly, but naturally lit.

To Laszlo ( if you check in again)

I think  that  there is still  a little instability in  a general  sense....  with  backing up  on  steps  if  you  decide you  are not putting your points  in  good spot.

Maybe this is causing some frustration for people.

Quote - It's threads like this that make me realize that Poser people just want a "Make Art" button. Pathetic really . . . . :O)

You're kidding, right? You have to jump through so many hoops placing marker dots and curves with FaceShop, and it crashes so often that I actually found it easier to go back and hand-manipulate the vertices in a modeller with my references set up in the old fashioned way.

FaceShop is about as far away from a 'Make Art' button (a term that's becoming a bit of an easy derision in 3d) as you can get. 

Quote - You have to jump through so many hoops placing marker dots and curves with FaceShop, and it crashes so often that I actually found it easier to go back and hand-manipulate the vertices in a modeller with my references set up in the old fashioned way.

Placing marker dots . . . oh my! If you can use a modeling app, you're an exception in the Poser world. I can use one too and still like Face Shop. Essentially, it's the Face Room for any head mesh. It's a quick, easy tool to get rid of the stock look on Poser heads, nothing more and nothing less. If you want more, you have to do more.

Quote - It's threads like this that make me realize that Poser people just want a "Make Art" button. Pathetic really . . . . :O)

I had to comment on this. I am not a "Make Art" button person in the least. I am a content creator and also like to customize characters, most especially trying to do lookalikes and unique characters. Take a look at my gallery for some of the unique characters I've recently done with FaceGen (which is the software on which the Face Room in Poser was based).

As much as I really tried to like FaceShop, I honestly have to say it is a disappointment in a lot of ways. The morphs come out with a lot of distortion, and the recommendation is to dial the morphs back to about 50-60 percent. Problem is, when you dial the morph back that much, you are fast approaching the shape and appearance of the default figure. The other issue is the textures. You can't get a decent result without a lot of effort.

Please, when people express dissatisfaction with a software program, don't automatically assume it's because the program doesn't have a make art button. It's a rude and disrespectful assumption. Carodan, in particular, is one of the most talented "custom character" folks in the community!

I think I misunderstood what fls13 was saying - wasn't expecting the 'I like FaceShop'.
I agree that Faceshop is supposed to make the process of custom character creation easier, but I'm saying it's just too bug-ridden (FS4 in standalone mode at least) to fulfill this role.
I know some effort has been made by the developer to cure the problems (I have the latest updated version), but IMO it's still far from functional.
It's not that I don't love the concept either - a fairly simple automation of the orthographic positioning of vertices to match frontal and profile images of a face, fantastic!. I even took the trouble of emailing Laslo about some ideas to improve the core funtionality (at the same time as urging him to get the bugs fixed).

P.S. Thanks Deecey - you're too kind. I've been a little out of the Poser game latety so I'm somewhat out of practice.

Quote - The other issue is the textures. You can't get a decent result without a lot of effort.

Please, when people express dissatisfaction with a software program, don't automatically assume it's because the program doesn't have a make art button. It's a rude and disrespectful assumption. Carodan, in particular, is one of the most talented "custom character" folks in the community!

I could tell you how to get very good textures out of Face Shop with only a modest amount of extra effort but the solution is so simple and you're so talented, you can figure it out for yourself. Hint: it applies in the Poser face room as well. :O)

I'll offer this challenge to anyone who cares to accept it. We'll agree on a famous person, obviously someone from the modern age so we have color photographs to use for texturing. I'll use Face Shop and anyone else can use whatever other apps they chose and we'll see who comes up with the strongest likeness. I have confidence in the app and promise not to use any modeling program.

Attached Link: FaceGen Celebs

In the meantime I'll see if I can find a thread that shows some of the other FaceGen faces that I worked up a while back ... stay tuned

link added

i am with you fls13,  as seen in my post -

so  sorry-  i am not your huckleberry on this one !
( not a challenger)

BTW - WHERE IS OBAMA!!!!

can't  he show up here and unite us all???!!

Bring us all together ????
!!!

Sounds reasonable, hash out the details and I'm in.

To make the challenge more valid  an unbiased 3rd party should select the person and provide the reference photos. This would eliminate variances in photo reference quality as a factor and ensure that participants had an equal start .

The results would also need to be posted anonymously in some way to eliminate the "popularity" factor  from the judging so the decision would be based solely on the merits of the results.

email them to said unbiased 3rd party and let them post it so no one but them will know  whose is whose.

Due to the differences in the way FaceGen and FaceShop work, it would also be good to select a front and side photo in addition to a 3/4 view like FaceShop uses.  FaceGen CAN use a 3/4 view shot as a front view, but it would be nice to have the option.

what's the time limit - now I feel like getting into  this.

All done in FaceGen, and shown in FaceGen, with absolutely no retouching. Can you guess who they are?  And they are all done with Victoria 4.

Now ... for the benefit of the original poster, I do have to add a disclaimer. The DAZ figures (or any other figure for that matter) do not "automatically" work in FaceGen. So this is not a solution that is equivalent to FaceShop at the present time (not sure of future versions that may come down the road).  It took me about a month's worth of hard work to figure out how to get DAZ figures to work in FaceGen. Now that I have it figured out I can get any figure working in it in 2-5 days. And once the figures are working, it takes only a matter of minutes to generate a likeness like shown above.

So ... it's not a simple solution for Poser figures. However, I show these results because it does at least show the type of results that I would HOPE to see in other similar apps.

Quote - I am not trying to make excuses, but I'm in the middle of installing a fresh install of Windows 7 and don't have any of my software installed yet. I say this lest I be accused of taking too long to make something for the challenge. But I venture to guess that I can have a reasonable likeness and texture done in FaceGen in about 5 minutes.  But I'll also have to contact the program developers for an updated license key once I get everything reinstalled, so my ability to take up this challenge won't be immediate.

In the meantime I'll see if I can find a thread that shows some of the other FaceGen faces that I worked up a while back ... stay tuned

link added

Facegen costs several hundred dollars doesn't it? Plus you have to use the included mesh so unless you make your own expression morphs, the face will be static. That's my understanding of it anyway. I have seen some amazing work done from it though . . . probably your's. :O)

Nope, those are all V4 as I edited my post to reflect above. I typed too slow.

Yes, it is several hundred dollars. And the customizer, which is required to get the characters to work in the Modeler, is also about the same. But I couldn't pass on the results that you can get. And even the month figuring out how to get figures to work was a total blast.

Definitely no "make art" button to get it to work. But pretty darn close once you do!

Quote - OK I'll post the image directly, since it's too easy to miss the above link ...

All done in FaceGen, and shown in FaceGen, with absolutely no retouching. Can you guess who they are?  And they are all done with Victoria 4.

Now ... for the benefit of the original poster, I do have to add a disclaimer. The DAZ figures (or any other figure for that matter) do not "automatically" work in FaceGen. So this is not a solution that is equivalent to FaceShop at the present time (not sure of future versions that may come down the road).  It took me about a month's worth of hard work to figure out how to get DAZ figures to work in FaceGen. Now that I have it figured out I can get any figure working in it in 2-5 days. And once the figures are working, it takes only a matter of minutes to generate a likeness like shown above.

So ... it's not a simple solution for Poser figures. However, I show these results because it does at least show the type of results that I would HOPE to see in other similar apps.

I see Clooney, Presley, Zeta-Jones, Bette Davis (?). The others I don't recognize but I know Facegen is a good app so I assume I just don't know the subjects. I'll take on a Zeta-Jones FaceShop morph and let you all judge yourselves. If you say nice things, I might even share some simple tricks. ;O)

Gillian Anderson (Scully), George Clooney, Elvis Presley, David Duchovny (Mulder), Catherine Zeta Jones, Bette Davis, Liv Tyler

The pics I had of Scully and Bette Davis weren't that great (hard to find one of Gillian Anderson when she has her mouth closed LOL); and I think I had the same problem with Liv Tyler as well.

Since I feel I can't rely on FaceShop, I would be prepared to take up the challenge using more traditional methods (vertice manipulation). It would take me considerably longer however, and I can't even begin until next week now because of other commitments.

I like the idea of more of a comparison of approaches.

• So, a third party selects an internationally famous personality and provides the best quality available front, profile and half-profile references (as true profile and frontal views as can be found).
• We go off and produce our likeness using whatever figure and apps we feel are appropriate.
• Whenever each of us are done we post our renders, stating the method(apps) used and time taken.

I'd also like to suggest one extra element to the challenge - the created character must be rendered in both textured AND untextured forms.

Carodan ... I wish I had the patience to do morphed characters the way that you and Fygomatic do. I've tried (lord knows I've tried). I can work with front views and profiles, but as soon as I get into angled photos I lose all concept of what the form of the face is supposed to look like. LOL

Anyway I will admit that a large part of these "automatic" programs rely quite a bit on the generated texture to achieve the likenesses; without the textures you just get the general form of the face. However, what I usually do AFTER FaceGen is done with the morphs is use morph dials in V4 or M4 to refine the features.

I suspect the most superior results come with patience and dedication, as is pretty much true with everything we do. 8-)

I think the thing that frustrated me the most about FaceShop with regard to the morphs (setting aside texture issues for now) was that the automation of taking key points from the front and profile views and mapping them onto the 3d model was so nearly there. I could see past the bugs (that made it impossible for me to actually get the final morph finished and back into Poser) and recognised that it would work - the FaceShop morph itself could have stood up to a fair degree of scrutiny without the texture.

I suggested to Laslo (apart from the crashing, file saving, mirror and obj export issues) that what FaceShop really needed IMO was to have a truly orthographic option, where the model was fixed in 3d space (it tends to rotate after the first set of points are added thus making further positioning of points very difficult ).
I think the concept of FaceShop has been built on the idea of using a single, half profile reference photo. This confused me for ages because Laslo had suggested that we'd get far more accurate results using the combination of front and profile references, but really as it is FaceShop doesn't work well with this method. I think the option to use a second profile image was really a bit of an afterthought, which is why it doesn't work so well (you can't move between Front and profile to tweak points without something messing up - at least for me). I'm fairly sure this is also why the mirror function often gives shonky results as far as the morph is concerned.

An option to give the model a reference texture in FaceShop (made by the user based on the uv mapping of head being used) with the reference points that are to be married to the corresponding points on the photos of the celeb, would also be of great benefit.

I would tend to approach the texture side of things without automation in any case. I never intended to use a FaceShop generated texture, except perhaps as a rough guide to building my own from the reference photos. It was always the morph that interested me primarily, since this plays such a pivotal role interacting with how the 3d lighting reveals the features in a render.

I primarily use the FaceGen-generated textures as a guide as well, because I can't think of ANY "automatic" solution for creating high-quality suitable for closeup textures. The results shown above are great for characters used in a typical gallery-sized image, but if you want something that is production quality and suitable for closeups, you have to edit textures yourself anyway.

I think I said earlier that I really WANTED to like FaceShop. My biggest complaints are the same as yours, Carodan ... a front and two profile views not only result in superior textures, but they also go a long way toward a suitable morph as well. With 3.4 views, the software is just "guessing" on a lot of the detail.

The other nice feature found in FaceGen that is not found in FaceShop is that there are built-in morphs (much like in Poser's face room) where you can tweak the major features to achieve a closer face shape. But, like Poser's face room, they are there for GENERAL ethnicity, age, weight, etc. Still, they lend a fantastic start toward the character you are going for (as is shown in the above images, which are UNTOUCHED, and right after the photo fitting process without tweaking anything else. For more specfic  facial features, like a round nose, or thin nostrils, or more subtle lip curves, you either morph yourself or use the built-in morphs on V4/M4. The more exact a likeness you want, the more work you have to put in. Regardless of what "automatic" method you choose.

Now ... would I be interested in FaceShop if it were beefed up a bit more?  Yes. Would I be willing to pay more for it if it was beefed up to include some of the features that I would like to see enhanced or fixed?  Yes ... but I would have to be 100% certain that the features were there and working to my liking first.  Until then, I am wonderfully  happy with FaceGen, in spite of the fact that it takes work to get figures working in there. 8-)

OK, I can see that there's a Zeta-Jones resemblence there, but I'm not sure I'd have got it if I hadn't read your earlier post.
You managed to get a morph out, which is more than I've been able to do this evening.

Deecey, FaceGen does look to have quite some potential. Your earlier renders are pretty convincing, even if they do rely heavily on the textures. Morphs are so important though, for the lighting aspect.

I agree, I could still be tempted back to an updated FaceShop if it worked on the orthographic principles and the extra referencing features as I descibed above (it would have to 'work', mind you, and I'd have to be able to try before I buy this time).
I'm afraid I do have serious doubts as to whether this will happen though.

btw. Fygomatic's morphs are just amazing. Not sure I could do anything that good.

Yes his morphs are definitely droolworthy pieces of art. 8-)

OK I have reinstalled FaceGen Modeller and Customizer, and am awaiting the authorization keys so that I can move on the challenge.

Michael Jackson?

Barack Obama?

George Bush?

Alan Alda (well maybe not, there aren't any good hi res pics of him anywhere! But it WOULD be funny seeing as it's a running forum joke) ...

Jessica Alba?

Alicia Keyes? (she's very pretty!)

Hillary Clinton?

Michelle Obama?

Sarah Palin?

Who, who, who?

Whatever ... PLEASE no Angelina. She has been done WAY too much!

I agree with Angelina, she's old ;) My vote is for Rachel Weisz or Cate Blanchett...

I LOVE Cate Blanchett, I think I found some good pics of her somewhere too. I'll see if I can hunt down the URLs

Quote - OK I have reinstalled FaceGen Modeller and Customizer, and am awaiting the authorization keys so that I can move on the challenge.

Michael Jackson?

Barack Obama?

George Bush?

Alan Alda (well maybe not, there aren't any good hi res pics of him anywhere! But it WOULD be funny seeing as it's a running forum joke) ...

Jessica Alba?

Alicia Keyes? (she's very pretty!)

Hillary Clinton?

Michelle Obama?

Sarah Palin?

Who, who, who?

Whatever ... PLEASE no Angelina. She has been done WAY too much!

I like the Alan Alda idea, but it seems he wears glasses a lot these days and that makes textures tricky. Whoever it is, there should be lots of good hi res pics available for the textures. I think women generally are tougher to get good likenesses on than men. Doesn't matter much to me otherwise.

Here are a couple of hires images:

Blanchett 1
Blanchett 2

Don´t have a side image...

Cate Blanchett:

Front:  http://blog.pennlive.com/lehighvalley/2008/05/BLANCHETT8.jpg

Right 3/4 (not so flattering but at least gets the shape of her face) http://lh3.ggpht.com/_vWF-Hyac9B4/SKE3K646QUI/AAAAAAAABvU/dmHUlCu1yLU/cateblanchettoscar7.jpg

Right 3/4 in black and white, but much better for her facial features: http://media.photobucket.com/image/cate%20blanchett/MadameSherry/Cate%20Blanchett/SK-II%202008%20Campaign/skii08_002.jpg

Oooh Vestmann, LOVE those!

She and Meryl Streep are my favorite actresses, because their performances are ALWAYS stellar.