Apple truly leads the pack with the True Depth Camera technology, their hardware can utilize a fuller range of 52 ARkit blendshapes from facial capture. Using Live Link Face on Apple’s App Store you can even apply this to a character animation graph for a ton of live capture options.
This process begins once you have a rigged model with all of the blendshapes created. Import into Unreal Engine and set up your basics like the materials, then follow this process to start setting up for Live Link.
We talk basics in this guide, and Grif posted the Blueprints onto blueprintUE for anyone to study and copy directly. We offer these for free, but please donate on Grif’s Ko-fi or even Patreon if you find these useful!
Event Graph: https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/5s9tabgh/
Anim Graph: https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/qglg24iz/
Grif covers general Live Link Face app setup at the start of this video, beginning with how the nodes are wired and locked for input. Using an Event Graph, the Live Link info is split between head angles like pitch and yaw to feed back into the main Animation Graph. Once the basic inputs are set, curve modifiers are applied to help ‘zero out’ the float positioning. AnimDynamics are applied after the Live Link inputs, before the Output onto the character in Unreal Engine.
To double-check you have Live Link Face connected, open your Skeletal Mesh and check for all the shapes listed in the Morph Target Preview. If you don’t see them, then under the Asset Details, type in ‘morph’ and you can Import Morph Targets over again. You may need to check your original FBX file to make sure your modeler added in all the ARkit face shapes ultimately.
After that bit of setup, your Live Link Face capture should be showing on your character inside of Unreal Engine. You can use this for motion capture processes, live-streaming, or even use it with UE’s multiplayer features in your final game. With any Apple True Depth Camera (like on recent iPhones and the iPad Pro) you can download the Live Link Face application from the App Store here and you’re ready to record! Take it even further with the Rokoko Smart Suit and capture your full body, Grif has a tutorial about that here to help your workflow.
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