Plugins + Scripts Micro Expressions

[prefectionist]

Hello @prefectionist ,

Is it possible to change the speed of the Micro Expressions?

Hi, not at present, but it's a good idea, adding speed control might help vary things a little. I'll look into it when I get some time.

 

[prefectionist]

Hello @prefectionist ,

Is it possible to change the speed of the Micro Expressions?

Hi actually, you can change the speed of in individual animation by changing the duration. Eg if it's 5s and you change it to 10s that will halve the speed. There's no global speed setting though (which is what I figured you meant)

 

[Tex]

Hi actually, you can change the speed of in individual animation by changing the duration. Eg if it's 5s and you change it to 10s that will halve the speed. There's no global speed setting though (which is what I figured you meant)

O.k., cool, yeah I just tried that, works great. thanks!

 

[Xul]

Hi! I truly love your tool and I spend a month developing a full set of animations and I'm super happy with that but now that I'm packing the scene the plugin doesn't work (in the scene and preset that are packed only, it still works great in the scene and preset they are made from) :/
To be more specific, in my packed scene I can see your plugin making it's work as it should and going through the animations I made, but it's not activating any of the morphs I used, except the ones that are built in VAM, those are the only ones that still works. For example not one of AshAuryn's is activated in the packed version of the scene (even though they were detected and put as dependencies), and if I go to look to one of the animation I made, I can see that the curbs are still there and the the morphs are referenced but they are not activating. Now, if I go find that same morph that should be activated and add it to this same animation, even though it's already present, it will add it (wich your plugin usually prevents) and this time the one I add will work (but the other still won't).
> So I'm guessing it's maybe that when I'm packing my scene and animations in the .var the morphs that comes from dependencies are not at the same path anymore for the plugin, or something like that? What can I do then? Or did I do something wrong?

 

[Xul]

Ok so I've look at the .json(s), and whether it's the one for my preset in your plugin, the one of my general preset, the one of the plugin preset or the one of my scene, in every case I see that everything that is link to an existing .var (dependencies) or that is in my custom folder gets renamed a bit in the version that's packed (not for just the lines concerning your plugin, but for everything, like clothes for example).
As such, in the text concerning your plugin every morphs referred to the path "AshAurynSomethingPack.7" gets renamed to "AshAurynSomethingPack.latest" by the package builder (I would guess) and your plugin doesn't recognize and activate them anymore, then every morphs referred to "Custom/Atometc" is renamed as "SELF:Custom/Atometc" and so they too aren't played anymore (even though the morph in question is pack inside the .var), but then the morphs that are built in VAM have the same name in both the original and packed file so they are still activated by the plugin in the packed version. Hope this helps.

 

[babul]

About that speed setting... I think that useful feature would be to have some kind of exposed speed parameter for given animation or globally, so it can seamlessly sync with Timeline. Maybe it would need a new internal value? Let's say I have both timeline animation and expression duration set to 2: by default it would sync perfectly, but when I change Timeline speed, expression would lag behind (unless I change it manually). So I guess if it had extra parameter of speed (for current animation and perhaps even global slider for full compatibility?), one could use just VUML + Action Grouper to keep timeline global/current animation speeds to expression speeds synced - guess each expression animation would need its own speed slider. Changing duration manually is a good workaround, but if you use float param randomizer to randomize speed of the timeline animation, it would be great if you could have both synced that way.

EDIT

Another suggestion: would be nice if you could manually input a value to a keyframe, or make first and last keyframe sync automatically (or enable ctrl+click drag vertically, so you can make sure first and last have same values). Often I want to start from specific value and go back to it, but it is only easy if you start on 0 because it snaps to it.

 

[VL_13]

An incredible tool Just WOW!!!
May I suggest a function..
How about creating keys without bezier curves..?
As you can see, when the keyframes are close enough together, curve crosses itself:
It would be very useful to be able to add simple (linear) keyframes.
without having to edit each key handle individually
(If the animation drags on, these handles will blur into one another, and might just get lost in the shuffle)

Spoiler: VIDEOExample

 

[VL_13]

Another useful feature will be parameter (trigger) : Play\Stop
I mean, stop/play looping playback while tuning (editing) keyframes.

in this case, we will be able to assign hotkeys for this function.
---
I'd also love a wider UI – those long animations can make navigating the keys a bit of a challenge! If you could add a zoom feature, that would be absolutely perfect.

 

[VL_13]

I'll add one more wish for the future: Timeline morph template export (for later baking).

Timeline is certainly a powerful tool, but adding morphing (in the form of triggers) is incredibly difficult. It takes 2 to 5 minutes to find just one, and there can be over 20 of them in animations.
As a result, a simple action takes at least half an hour.

Spoiler: add_morps_to_TL

--
After experimenting, I came up with a simple way: manually edit the preset timeline.
It's a breeze! We just need to pop all the morph names from the MicroExpressions preset into the preset blocks of the Timeline.

Then load the preset

bake the keys.. Done

 

[prefectionist]

Hi! I truly love your tool and I spend a month developing a full set of animations and I'm super happy with that but now that I'm packing the scene the plugin doesn't work (in the scene and preset that are packed only, it still works great in the scene and preset they are made from) :/
To be more specific, in my packed scene I can see your plugin making it's work as it should and going through the animations I made, but it's not activating any of the morphs I used, except the ones that are built in VAM, those are the only ones that still works. For example not one of AshAuryn's is activated in the packed version of the scene (even though they were detected and put as dependencies), and if I go to look to one of the animation I made, I can see that the curbs are still there and the the morphs are referenced but they are not activating. Now, if I go find that same morph that should be activated and add it to this same animation, even though it's already present, it will add it (wich your plugin usually prevents) and this time the one I add will work (but the other still won't).
> So I'm guessing it's maybe that when I'm packing my scene and animations in the .var the morphs that comes from dependencies are not at the same path anymore for the plugin, or something like that? What can I do then? Or did I do something wrong?

Hi sorry for the late reply, I've been inactive for a bit. Could you send me an example of the packed file - it must be how I'm storing the reference to the morph. I'll take a look (if it's not too late)

 

[prefectionist]

I'll add one more wish for the future: Timeline morph template export (for later baking).

Timeline is certainly a powerful tool, but adding morphing (in the form of triggers) is incredibly difficult. It takes 2 to 5 minutes to find just one, and there can be over 20 of them in animations.
As a result, a simple action takes at least half an hour.

Spoiler: add_morps_to_TL

View attachment 543889

--
After experimenting, I came up with a simple way: manually edit the preset timeline.
It's a breeze! We just need to pop all the morph names from the MicroExpressions preset into the preset blocks of the Timeline.
View attachment 543882
Then load the preset
View attachment 543883
bake the keys.. Done
View attachment 543884

Thanks for the feedback, really cool to see it being used. Sorry I've been a bit inactive of late so only just saw this. I agree It would be great to export the morph setup to timeline for baking, let me see if it's possible.

Yeah the tool doesn't work so well for longer animations, probably needs a scrollbar or wider area as you point out. I will have a look into that - making it wider is probably fairly easy.

Would be really interesting to see what you've done with it.

 

[VL_13]

Would be really interesting to see what you've done with it.

_
To be honest; I didn't do anything Much.
but you can watch my attempts on this video. This video doesn't show how I baked keys in timeline, As it's all done in a text editor (I didn't record this process)

 

[prefectionist]

_
To be honest; I didn't do anything Much.
but you can watch my attempts on this video. This video doesn't show how I baked keys in timeline, As it's all done in a text editor (I didn't record this process)

Hah that's so cool! Really does bring her to life! Love the music. I'm kind of inspired to do some more with it now.

I built this originally as a screen overlay because it was so annoying having to switch between plugin screens, but I just discovered the awesome Custom UI resizer by https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/customui-panelresizer.60131 from @14mhz which allows the UI to float (like you have in your SS), plus also adds horizontal scrolling automatically - so maybe I can port it back to a standard plugin screen and get a larger editing area and scrolling for free

 

[Xul]

Hi sorry for the late reply, I've been inactive for a bit. Could you send me an example of the packed file - it must be how I'm storing the reference to the morph. I'll take a look (if it's not too late)

Hi! Thanks for your reply! It's clearly not late, I'm building a lot of things with your plugin and I can't wait to share it, thanks again for this awesome tool.
I made a scene to easily see the problem with only 3 "animations", one being made with a morph from this AshAuryn pack, the other with a built in morph, and finally one of a custom morph.
I can't send a .var here but here's the .json files of the two versions of the scenes:
-The unmodified .json is as it is after packing the .var with the package builder.
Launching that scene will only have the built-in morph working. It won't find AshAuryn's nor the custom one even though its path is correct (being correctly packaged in the var under Custom/Atom/Person/Morphs/female)
-The modified one is the workaround I'm gonna use for my scene for now, copying back (on the paragraph concerning your plugin) the original text, as written before being packaged.
Launching this scene will have the built-in morphs and AshAuryn's working, but not the custom morph (which in its case is logical because it has now the path as it's supposed to be on my computer, so putting a copy of the morph in your personal Custom/Atom/Person/Morphs/female folder will make it work).

In conclusion:
-The plugin recognize the built-in morph in any case, the path being the same in both versions.
-For a morph from a dependency (like AshAuryn's in this example) it recognize this "Id" : "AshAuryn.AshAuryn's_Assorted_Expression_Pack_with_75_Morphs.7:Custom/ etc but not the package builder's "Id" : "AshAuryn.AshAuryn's_Assorted_Expression_Pack_with_75_Morphs.latest:/Custom/ etc. (difference is only the number of version, here .7, being replaced by .latest)
-For custom morphs it won't find the one in the package "Id" : "SELF:/Custom/ etc but will find the one on your personal files with the original path "Id" : "Custom/ etc. (so SELF:/ is what it does not recognize)

 

[prefectionist]

prefectionist updated Micro Expressions with a new update entry:

Version 6

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with morphs not working after packaging a scene

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[prefectionist]

Hi! Thanks for your reply! It's clearly not late, I'm building a lot of things with your plugin and I can't wait to share it, thanks again for this awesome tool.
I made a scene to easily see the problem with only 3 "animations", one being made with a morph from this AshAuryn pack, the other with a built in morph, and finally one of a custom morph.
I can't send a .var here but here's the .json files of the two versions of the scenes:
-The unmodified .json is as it is after packing the .var with the package builder.
Launching that scene will only have the built-in morph working. It won't find AshAuryn's nor the custom one even though its path is correct (being correctly packaged in the var under Custom/Atom/Person/Morphs/female)
-The modified one is the workaround I'm gonna use for my scene for now, copying back (on the paragraph concerning your plugin) the original text, as written before being packaged.
Launching this scene will have the built-in morphs and AshAuryn's working, but not the custom morph (which in its case is logical because it has now the path as it's supposed to be on my computer, so putting a copy of the morph in your personal Custom/Atom/Person/Morphs/female folder will make it work).

In conclusion:
-The plugin recognize the built-in morph in any case, the path being the same in both versions.
-For a morph from a dependency (like AshAuryn's in this example) it recognize this "Id" : "AshAuryn.AshAuryn's_Assorted_Expression_Pack_with_75_Morphs.7:Custom/ etc but not the package builder's "Id" : "AshAuryn.AshAuryn's_Assorted_Expression_Pack_with_75_Morphs.latest:/Custom/ etc. (difference is only the number of version, here .7, being replaced by .latest)
-For custom morphs it won't find the one in the package "Id" : "SELF:/Custom/ etc but will find the one on your personal files with the original path "Id" : "Custom/ etc. (so SELF:/ is what it does not recognize)

Thanks for the detailed report!

I think I have fixed it, looking at other plugins, they all seem to load morphs by their display Name instead of uid maybe for this reason exactly. The fix was to use Display Name instead of the UID for lookups and storage. Hopefully this fixes the issues. Existing scenes should work fine.

Please let me know if you spot other issues, and sorry it's taken so long to fix.

 

[Xul]

Thanks for the detailed report!

I think I have fixed it, looking at other plugins, they all seem to load morphs by their display Name instead of uid maybe for this reason exactly. The fix was to use Display Name instead of the UID for lookups and storage. Hopefully this fixes the issues. Existing scenes should work fine.

Please let me know if you spot other issues, and sorry it's taken so long to fix.

Yaaay! That's awesome, I was just thinking about this today, that's super great news to me! Thanks a lot
If you are curious about what I did with it for now I have posted her: I use 4 layers of your plugin for the background constant noise-animations (twitch and very subtle mood changes, with 2 layers working the eyes/brows and 2 for the mouth/cheeks) + 1 layer for the principal animations (which should be unique to each character and far more expressive) and then 2 additional layers for subtle hands/fingers and feet/toes movement. The version I have posted is just a beta, bit broken on some anim because they were done for her previous face, also some morphs are messing the teeth, but I'm gonna restart from scratch anyway now that I have your fix and can add custom morphs (also I'll change the name of the project, lots of "alive" already), so I'll update her with the 1.0 version in a month or two. I have a lot of ideas to (slowly) compose a sort of AI, and with your plugin I can build the foundations, so I truly love it as much than Legos and I'm very excited and thanks a lot for the fix