Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Does anyone have Face Shop Pro? What do you think of it?

sonita opened this issue on Apr 27, 2007 · 21 posts


sonita posted Fri, 27 April 2007 at 2:01 AM

I was thinking of buying it myself, my partner is skeptical, so I wanted to know if anyone has it and if they would recommend it, since it's on sale now. Thanks.


Dead_Reckoning posted Fri, 27 April 2007 at 3:00 AM

Quote - I was thinking of buying it myself, my partner is skeptical, so I wanted to know if anyone has it and if they would recommend it, since it's on sale now. Thanks.

 

Several that bought it, asked Daz for a Cash refund.
All it really does is modify the Face Mesh somewhat and make a Face Map, whinh does not include the Nostrils.
You have to use a Paint Prog such as PS or PSP etc to creat the texture to match that FaceMap for the Head and Body.

Read it for yourself.

Cool Face Mapping and Morphing software at DAZ
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=840092#840092

"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
Thomas Jefferson


sonita posted Fri, 27 April 2007 at 10:30 PM

Thank you Mariner, you just saved me $50 :) Better start putting it towards FaceGen :P


Talos posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 4:05 PM

I have the Face Gen demo, and it seems like a fun and expensive toy that can't do good noses.


ClawShrimp posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 6:24 PM

I'm a glutton for punishment.

I have Face Shop Pro. I've never asked for a refund for ANYTHING before, but this steaming pile may be a first. The changes it makes to your imported mesh are absolutely miniscule, and the textures it creates/extracts are almost always worthless, even with what should be considered a ‘perfect’ reference photo. If you’re looking for quality results, no amount of time or effort within this program will lead to it. Just take a look at the shots they are using for promotional purposes! Bleh!

I've had FaceGen for a while (since before I bought Poser), and while fun, is not really suitable for serious Poser modelling. The resulting meshes and textures are far too low-res/low-detail for practical use. I don’t know if the software has improved since I used it though, so don’t take this as gospel.

If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards...checkmate!


ByteDreams posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 6:48 PM

I have Face Shop Pro, and if you read the threads at Daz you'll find that a few that returned it, turned around and re-bought it...  I have posted a few of my successes with it in my gallery here at r'osity...

It seems to have as many successes as failures.  I happen to love the program, and am now on the hunt for photos.


BastBlack posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 9:44 PM

FaceShop is a killer app. Anyone who is seriously into creating faces must have it. Since I am one such person. It's another Must Have tool I can use to create morphs. I find the morphs created in FaceShop are too messy for my tastes, however I can use FaceShop morph as a 3D template for sculpting my own morph. It's incredible guide that shows you where you need to be. And get this, it's made from a 2d photo. It's amazing to me just how accurate the profile of the FaceShop morph is, and it's made from just one photo that isn't a profile shot! oO How can it do that? That is simply stunning to me!!!! oO But you have to understand, it does not, in one click, give you a celebrity for your Runtime. It takes work and effort. Some people are using the FaceShop morphs in Daz|Studio at a .4 or .5 setting and then using the Daz head morphs to supplement. Some people are doing FaceShop cleanup in Hexagon. imho, it's wise to clean up the FaceShop morphs. I am blending multiple FaceShop morphs of one subject in Blacksmith, doing some clean up, and then using the FaceShop morph as a 3D guide to creating my own morph in Blacksmith. I don't have a polished head morph done yet, but I've only spent about 3 hours in FaceShop. It's one of those things that take practice. My advise is this: If you want a ready-made Celebrity, buy one in the marketplace. If you enjoy creating faces, and have the patience for it, then you get FaceShop. bB


laslov posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 10:05 PM

Quote - I'm a glutton for punishment.

I have Face Shop Pro. I've never asked for a refund for ANYTHING before, but this steaming pile may be a first. The changes it makes to your imported mesh are absolutely miniscule, and the textures it creates/extracts are almost always worthless, even with what should be considered a ‘perfect’ reference photo. If you’re looking for quality results, no amount of time or effort within this program will lead to it. Just take a look at the shots they are using for promotional purposes! Bleh!

I've had FaceGen for a while (since before I bought Poser), and while fun, is not really suitable for serious Poser modelling. The resulting meshes and textures are far too low-res/low-detail for practical use. I don’t know if the software has improved since I used it though, so don’t take this as gospel.

This is all very sweet, ClawShrimp!
Why don't you also mention that THERE ARE tons of great images created with this "steaming pile"? Let people know that they can look at this thread http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=851068#851068 or this http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=851043#851043 to see cool art!!
There's even an impromptu "Celbrity Look-alike Contest" at DAZ with great images at http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=57975
Thanks for your support.


ByteDreams posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 10:42 PM

Most "serious" poser modeling is not done in poser at all.  For serious modeling, a modeling program is the way to go - and we know the learning curve on such programs is as high as the price tags.  If it wasn't for artists like David Ho and others (the likes of who are usually feature artists here and Daz/Artzone, Poser and Daz Studio would not be taken seriously at all, as once it wasn't.

The amount of post-editing done on the generated texture map is really in the hands of the user.  I know very little about character texturing, but I know enough about selecting and layers in photoshop to make this program usable - much more usable than my attempts in the face room have been, which required much more work in photoshop before even getting to the face room stage.  And an added plus, is I'm learning a little about character texturing along the way - all at a price I can afford. 

ByteDreams


BastBlack posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 11:00 PM

Okay, here's a little what I'm doing. This is morph created in FaceShop using a 3/4 photo. This is not someone you know. I used the Mirror option in FaceShop to make the morph symetrical. This causes a few vertices pinches down the center Y axis. This is easy to fix in Blacksmith. I lock the Y and Z axis, and smooth on the X axis. The nose and the area surround the nose is now corrected. Took less then 20 seconds to fix. ^^ Areas I haven't fixed yet are the upper forehead or the chin and lips yet. I also already fixed the Eyeballs and the Skull shape. I just noticed where everything was and it's size, unmorphed back to the default M3 head, then repositioned and rescaled to match the FaceShop morph. Super smooth and clean now. ^^ The trickest area to fix will be the Eyebrow and Eyelashes. The Eyelashes on the left on the image are beautiful. The eyelashes on the right were not mirrored to match the Left size. The Eyebrow on the right also did not mirror. (I think this will be corrected in SR1). I will restore the inner the mouth, tongue, gums and teeth to the default just to make sure there aren't any problems. Anyhoo, that's a little bit of what I've done. This morph is nice looking, imho. The cleanup on this morph is not alot. The reason is because I preplanned my photo and put down all my points and made a skull shape before I took it into FaceShop. So I was well prepared and took my time making sure the curves I drew were neat and had the same number of points as the template on M3. bB

DarkEdge posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 11:23 PM

My personal opinion is it's crap. Don't bother.
FaceGen has more possibilities.

Comitted to excellence through art.


BastBlack posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 11:25 PM

GenHead is $299. FaceGen is expensive and a version of it is included in Poser 6 and 7 for Miki1,2, G2 males, Jesse 1 2, and James, and Apollo. FaceShop is not like either of those apps. It's on another level. The other apps must have photos that are not straight profile or head shots. FaceShop can take any crazy photo angle you give it. FaceShop is on sale for $25 for basic, and $55 for pro. (Poser users should get the pro version.) It's money well spent, imho. I've tried a few crazy morphs with FaceShop too like morphing M3's head into Anubis (and I tired Anubis for MillDog too!) lol. It will take me a bit to figure out where to put my points to get the correct morph. ;) p.s. I read over at Daz too that few people did not get the morph. I have the pro version and Have not had that problem. It does take a little bit for the app to process the morph and do a mirror, but I have noticed you can "export" the obj before the app is done thinking. If you export before it's done, then maybe that's how people are not getting the morph? They are exporting too early? bB


ByteDreams posted Tue, 08 May 2007 at 11:38 PM

DarkEdge, I browsed your gallery to get an idea of what a model done in face gen looked like. Were there any there?  I also looked on your site but couldn't tell by looking at the characters there either. 

By the way, and off-topic, how does one turn off the music on your home page?


ClawShrimp posted Wed, 09 May 2007 at 12:01 AM

"Why don't you also mention that THERE ARE tons of great images created with this "steaming pile"?"

laslov, I don't need to let people know anything other than my opinion. I'm not an Editor of a Newspaper, and as such I am not required or expected to investigate and provide both sides of every story.

If people are having great success with FaceShop, that's great news, and more power to them.

I for one have had little success, and for the time being at least not be using it for morphs.

If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards...checkmate!


DarkEdge posted Wed, 09 May 2007 at 2:40 PM

ByteDreams,

No, there are no images of FaceGen on my site. I played with it over at an associates place for a couple of hours, here are my thoughts (and not a complete investigation by any means):

-Definately a great tool for creating faces, ease of use and what you can do are really something. Texturing as well. I believe there is a free trial version available, double check their website, worth playing with at least.
-Bringing FaceGen into Poser seems to be a real hassle, almost to the point of it's not worth it. Besides you would have to get another application called FaceGen Customizer and use that with FaceGen Modeler. (By this I mean you could export/import an obj easy enough but to be able to control the face muscles is what I'm speaking of; smile, frown, etc.)
-No bodies, just heads. So depends on what you want it for. Close head shots and/or fixing/hiding neck seams in other apps possible.
-You can make expressions with it but not sure how I feel about that yet, if it's worth it that is. No hair. Limited animation.
-Morphing (making alien ears) seems to be quite involved as well, again almost too much work...easier just to use my own methods.  

Poser still has it beat in my book but FaceGen is great for what it does...creating faces, very good at that. I wish it was easier to use it with other applications, but I haven't really jumped head first at trying to make that happen either.

Ahem, turn off your speakers. lol! Yes, a flaw on my part. Creating a new site as we speak, controls will be available.
Hope this helps. 😉

Comitted to excellence through art.


ByteDreams posted Wed, 09 May 2007 at 5:15 PM

hmm.  I'm tight on drive space right now so can't do the demo, however I am a Poser user for the most part, so by your description sounds like a lot of money to achieve little result.  As you said, I'd have to buy the FaceGen, and some extra module I'd have to pay for separately for something that works like something I already have (Poser)... 

Luckily, I scored FaceShop Pro when it was $40...


jhustead posted Thu, 10 May 2007 at 4:28 PM

Try out a program called Quidam made from a company called http://www.n-sided.com/ I just downloaded the demo of it but I haven't got a chance to try it out yet. If you want to see some of the awesome outcomes of this program check out one of my favorite artist’s named Franz (his username is FS) here's a link to his gallery  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=13356 most of his newest work has been of characters he's made with Quidam. He even did a tutorial on how to use the program http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=1614&page=1 I think one of the coolest things about Quidam is that you can import characters such as V3 and V4 and you can edit and make your own morphs. Which I don't think you're able to do with Daz characters in Face Shop. I hope this was helpful.

Cheers,
James


ByteDreams posted Thu, 10 May 2007 at 5:02 PM

well your friend's  gallery is certainly a delight.  The program looks interesting, but 238 Euros?  Don't know if I'm ready to take that kind of plunge..  Let us know how you fair with it (learning curve, especially) -- and on a different thread perhaps. 


laslov posted Fri, 11 May 2007 at 10:12 AM

Attached Link: FaceShop Review

Nice FaceShop Review on this blog: [ http://poserforensicartists.com/2007/05/10/review-faceshop-pro-pantomat/](http://poserforensicartists.com/2007/05/10/review-faceshop-pro-pantomat/)

Laslo


laslov posted Fri, 11 May 2007 at 11:40 PM

Attached Link: Cool Look-alike contest

?

Come show off your best 3D look-a-like using the FaceShop software! Use any headshot you have or can find, whether of your favorite celebrity, yourself, or anyone else you can think of. Then, create a 3D head of them within either FaceShop Basic of FaceShop Pro and render out your best image of them and submit it to this contest.

 

Prizes -

Award Ceremony and Party
Join us to have fun! DAZ 3D and Pantomat will jointly present awards to the winners at the FaceShop Look-a-Like Award Ceremony in July 2007 (exact date and information to come).

The Award Ceremony will take place in Second Life, the popular online 3D world (www.secondlife.com). All attendants must sign up with Second Life and create an avatar to attend. Second Life registration and party attendance is free.

See Some Exciting Portraits! There's already a good selection of FaceShop art under the following thread: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=57975 See for yourself what others are creating using FaceShop and DAZ|Studio or Poser!


laslov posted Fri, 11 May 2007 at 11:41 PM

Attached Link: Cool Look-alike contest

?

Come show off your best 3D look-a-like using the FaceShop software! Use any headshot you have or can find, whether of your favorite celebrity, yourself, or anyone else you can think of. Then, create a 3D head of them within either FaceShop Basic of FaceShop Pro and render out your best image of them and submit it to this contest.

 

Prizes -

Award Ceremony and Party
Join us to have fun! DAZ 3D and Pantomat will jointly present awards to the winners at the FaceShop Look-a-Like Award Ceremony in July 2007 (exact date and information to come).

The Award Ceremony will take place in Second Life, the popular online 3D world (www.secondlife.com). All attendants must sign up with Second Life and create an avatar to attend. Second Life registration and party attendance is free.

See Some Exciting Portraits! There's already a good selection of FaceShop art under the following thread: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=57975 See for yourself what others are creating using FaceShop and DAZ|Studio or Poser!