User Manual

• A shortcut for the menu command 'Model' -> 'Change Model Parts'.

Generate Tab

• Racial Origin Sub-Tabs
  • The racial origin group sub-tab effects all controls that tab except Gender, Age and Asymmetry.
  • The racial origin groups are broad groupings which inevitably have some amount of overlap.
• Generate Button
  • Randomly generates a face from the current racial origin group.
  • If all the 'rand lock' selections are off (the default) the faces will be generated completely randomly.
  • Those controls that have 'rand lock' set will constrain the randomly generated face to the value of that control.
• Set Average Button
  • Reset the face to the average face for the current racial origin group, using the current gender and age values.
  • Note that this will result in caricature and asymmetry having value 0.
  • The average 'All Races' individual is an equal blend of each of the four other racial origin groups.
• S/T Controls
  • Sync Lock
    • The S/T Controls are divided into shape and texture sliders.
    • Shape sliders affect only the underlying geometry.
    • Texture sliders affect only the underlying color (texture map).
    • It is sometimes convenient to adjust these synchronously, which can be achieved using the 'sync lock' check-box.
    • Note that controls in other areas of FaceGen Modeller may affect shape and texture differently, changing the relative positions of the S/T Controls even though the 'sync lock' check-box remains on.
    • To return sync locked controls to the same relative position, uncheck the sync lock, move one control level with the other, and re-check sync lock.
  • Rand Lock
    • If you wish to fix the value of any of the S/T controls while generating random faces, turn on the Rand Lock for that control.
  • Gender
    • Male faces really are darker than female faces on average, however this may be exaggerated by FaceGen due to imperfections in our dataset.
    • Since color statistics do not extrapolate well beyond the normal range, if you are exaggerating gender values, you should unlock sync and exaggerate the shape more than the color (texture).
    • This control is independent of the current racial origin group.
  • Age
    • This control is independent of the current racial origin group.
    • FaceGen does not currently model young children.
  • Caricature
    • Caricature measures how different a face is from the average face of the same gender, age and racial origin group.
    • Most real people will have a caricature value close to 'Typical'.
  • Asymmetry
    • Most real faces have a perceptible amount of asymmetry - a value close to 'Typical' on our asymmetry scale.
    • Adding some asymmetry to your faces is important in order to make them look truly alive. Perfectly symmetric faces aren't as believable.
    • This control is independent of the current racial origin group.
• Race Morphing Controls
  • There are as many ways to morph between racial origin groups as there are pairs of racial origin groups.
  • Each control shows how the current face compares to the difference between the averages of each of its racial origin groups.
  • This comparison combines shape and color (texture) differences.
  • In most cases, you will want to select the racial origin tab that best characterizes the current face before applying race morphing.

View Tab

• Diffuse Shading Mode
  • Gouraud. Diffuse lighting is calculated at each vertex and linearly interpolated over the facets, making the surface look smoothly curved.
  • Phong. Diffuse lighting is calculated at each pixel. This will generally make low poly models look a bit better than using Gouraud, however it is slower (an extra render pass) and can cause artifacts on highly foreshortened surfaces if you aren't using 4x FSAA anti-aliasing (see tips).
  • Flat. Each facet is considered flat and has the same lighting over its surface. This allows for easy viewing of the underlying polygonal surface.
  • Note that specular highlights are always Phong shaded in Modeller, regardless of this setting.
• Texture Mode
  • With texture 'Off', you can see the underlying geometry by itself - no coloring. Better for examining shape.
• Wireframe
  • Overlay the models with a wireframe of the mesh.
• Shiny
  • Turns the specular component of your lighting up to 11 (in the Spinal Tap sense). Easier to see shape detail while still seeing color.
  • Specular highlights are always Phong shaded in Modeller.
• Object Rotation
  • Pan / Tilt. Easy to control, but you can't make the face rotate around your line of sight.
  • 3 DOF Harder to control but you can put the face in any desired pose. To rotate the face around the view axis, move the cursor in circles.
• Background Color
  • Change the view window background color. To restore it to the original black, use 0 for R, G and B.
• Background Photo Mode
  • Once you have loaded a photo for comparison (see below) you can choose to have the photo appear transparent on top of the face (overlay) or have the face appear transparent on top of the photo (underlay).
• Background Photo
  • Load Photo To compare your face with a photograph, use this button to load the photo image. It must be stored as a BMP, JPG, TGA or TIF.
  • Transparency Adjust the transparency of the photo or face, depending on the current background photo mode.
  • To translate the photo in the view window, ctrl-shift-left-click and drag in the view window.
  • To scale the photo in the view window, ctrl-shift-right-click and drag up/down in the view window.
• Lighting Options
  • Lighting options will be remembered when you quit and restart Modeller, and are useful for matching the rendering properties of your game engine.
  • Ambient Brightness
    • The ambient component illuminates all surfaces equally, regardless of position or direction faced.
  • Light Source
    • Adjust the brightness of the light, and its incoming direction.
  • PreSets
    1. 60% Single frontal light, 40% ambient.
    2. 60% Off-centre frontal light, 40% ambient.
    3. 60% from 3 lights (front and each side, all elevated), 40% ambient.
  • Tip: To modify the shininess of a surface, edit the corresponding text files ending in the suffix '.fr3d' found in the directory 'csamDefault' in your FaceGen directory.

Camera Tab

• Projection Mode
  • A perspective view is how we normally see a face - from a relatively close vantage point. Orthographic projection allows you to view the face as if through a telescope from a large distance.
• Perspective Controls
  • FOV Angle. Adjust the angle of the camera field of view, in degrees. You can also right-click-drag the mouse in the viewport.
  • Distance Ratio. Adjust the distance of the camera from the current model centre as a ratio to the largest dimension of its bounding box. You can also shift-right-click-drag the mouse in the viewport.
• Orthographic Controls
  • Relative Scale. Adjust the size of the current object bounding box relative to the view window.
• Reset Camera
  • To allow precise comparisons, the bounding box is not recalculated after you add or remove model parts. This can sometimes cause parts of the model to be sheared off. If this happends, just hit the Reset Camera button.

Shape and Texture Tabs

• Symmetry Sub-Tabs
  • The shape statistics are divided into symmetric and asymmetric components.
• Labelled Controls
  • There are 56 symmetric shape, 26 asymmetric shape and 33 texture controls.
  • Each control ranges between plus and minus 10 standard deviations of the distribution.
  • Note that although 10 standard deviations by itself is very unlikely, one slider at 10 standard deviations out of many sliders is more probable. In other words, moving just one slider to an extreme value may not produce a totally unrealistic face.
  • The controls are not completely independent of each other; adjusting one slider will usually affect several others. This is how the FaceGen preserves the statistical validity of the face.
  • Note that sometimes the distribution of a control is not normal (bell-curved). For instance, when moving the symmetric texture control 'Eyebrows (whole) - Light / dark', you get unrealistic results more quickly on the light side than the dark side. In this case the distribution is skewed.
• Set to Zero Button
  • Set all controls in the current view to 0
• Mirror Button
  • (Asymmetric views only) Create the mirror image of the current asymmetry.

Genetic Tab

• Generate. The genetic interface is a good way to fine-tune a face to get a specific, intangible 'look' that you can't find a slider for. Just generate variants of the current face until you find one that looks more like what you want, and click on it. Repeat until finished.
• Randomness. You can adjust how different from the current faces you want the random variations to be.
• Tip: Since the genetic array has small windows, you should maximize the size of the face in the view window to be able to see subtle face differences in the genetic array windows.

Tween Tab

• Load Target Button
  • The first step is always to load a target face. Now you can morph between the current face and the target face, to an in-between face, hence 'tweening'.
• Tween Controls
  • You can separately tween symmetric shape, asymmetric shape and texture.
  • This can be an effective way of copying a shape you like without changing the texture, or vice versa.
  • You can also exaggerate the differences between the current and target faces by moving the slider past them.

Morphs Tab

• These controls affect shape only - not color (texture). Unlike the controls in the 'Shape' tab, these controls are MESH SPECIFIC.
• They are scaled from 0 to 1, where 1 is the morph target.
• They are divided into four types:
  • Expressions should generally only be used one or two at a time.
  • Phonemes should generally only be used one or two at a time.
  • Modifiers can be used in combination with expressions and phonemes.
  • Morphs are anything else - elf ears and an elf nose for example.
• These controls were created by an animation specialist and thus have a more traditional look than FaceGen's statistically created 'Shape' tab controls.

PhotoFit Tab

• Create a FaceGen face from one or more photos.
• A frontal image is required. Left and right profile images are optional
• Photo Guidelines
  • The most important step is to take good photos. To ensure good results, you must follow these guidelines:
  • Essential:
    • Faces must have the mouth closed and be in the neutral (relaxed) expression.
    • Eyes must be open and looking straight ahead.
    • Faces must be about 12 years of age or older.
    • The entire face must be in the photo.
    • Flash lighting must be used, and the face must not be otherwise brightly lit.
    • Images must be in color.
  • Recommended:
    • Glasses should be removed.
    • Hair should not cover the forehead or any part of the face.
    • The camera should be at least 3 feet away from the face.
    • The face should be at least 500 pixels high in the image.
    • In the frontal shot, your chin should slightly elevated as if you're looking just above the camera.
    • Focus your eyes on something just above the camera, rather than into the distance, to avoid a spacey look.
  • OK:
    • Facial hair is OK.
    • Flashes on both sides of the camera can be used.
    • Flash diffusers can be used.
  • Bad:
    • The face should not be painted (makeup is OK).
    • Avoid taking photos outdoors in daylight.
    • Drawings of faces may not yield good results.
  • Save your photos in the JPEG (JPG), BMP, TIFF (TIF) or TGA file formats.
• Point placement
  • Left-click between points and drag to move them all.
  • Left-click on a point and drag to move it separately.
  • Right-click and drag to scale the size of the point layout.
  • The eye points should be in the centre of the eyes.
  • The outer cheekbone points should be inside of any sideburn hair. Don't worry if the crosshairs fall outside the zoomed placement window - you can adjust them by hitting the 'Back' button.
  • The nose flap points should be on the outermost edges of the nose flaps.
  • The mouth corner points ... well you get the idea.
  • The outer jaw points should be horizontally in line with the mouth corner points. It does NOT matter where the neck profile intersects the face profile.
  • The chin point should be at the bottom centre of the chin.
• Choosing to preserve facial hair will add the facial hair to the detail texture. This will allow the facial hair to appear on the texture map of the final face, but it may not look appropriate after you adjust controls for, say, a more female face.
• You can choose to use detail texture from the profile view as well if you have both profile images. For good results, make sure your profile images don't have specular reflections on the skin.
• Before running the PhotoFit, to prevent possible errors, disable your screensaver and if you have user-selected anti-aliasing on your 3D graphics card, disable it as well.
• Save the result to an FG file before proceeding - loading that FG file in the future will give you the identical result to repeating that particular PhotoFit.
• Note that the gamma value (darkness and colour saturation) of the reconstructed face texture may differ somewhat from photo. If you wish to preserve the exact look of the photo, you can adjust the 'Texture Gamma Correction' slider on the lower left to better match the photograph.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Arrow Keys - Adjust a slider control gradually.
• Pg Up / Pg Dn - Adjust a slider control in bigger steps.
• Tab - Select the next controls in the current view.
• Shift-Tab - Select the previous control in the current view.
• Alt then Letter - Select the menu starting with 'Letter'.
• Ctl-N - File -> New
• Ctl-O - File -> Open
• Ctl-S - File -> Save
• Ctl-E - File -> Export
• Ctl-Z - Edit -> Undo
• Ctl-Y - Edit -> Redo

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