Automatic Face Tracking (new tool release!) (Patreon)

HAHA! Very excited about this!! Nathan just put together a python script to get google's mediapipe face-tracking data into blender! 

[quick edit- to help with any troubleshooting, if you're posting about having a problem, including your OS, whether you had problems installing python/the libraries, and a screenshot of the command terminal (both what you put in, and what it said), very much increases the odds we can help you :) ]

It's not useful for everything, but for some things, it's an absolute life saver.

Get the Face Tracker Python Script here at Eat The Future.

Here's a text version of what I cover in the video (along with some easy-to-copy-and-paste text):

FOR INSTALLATION:

Make sure Python is installed for your system
(you might have to uninstall any out-of-date versions)

Open a command prompt and install the libraries, one at a time, using:

pip install numpy

pip install opencv-python

pip install mediapipe

Create an environment variable:
PROTOCOL_BUFFERS_PYTHON_IMPLEMENTATION
with the variable itself being
python

And finally, download the script linked above (and as seen in the video) from the Eat The Future github page.

TO USE THE TOOL (probably best explained in the video, honestly)

 
For Orthographic Mode:

Open a command prompt, and drag in the python script

Make sure there's a space. 

Drag in the video to be tracked.

Another Space. 

Set the Destination for the mdd file (I usually drag in the video again, and change the filetype to ".mdd")

Mine looks like this:

Hit Enter, and off it goes!

For Perspective Mode:

The same thing, but just one more bit of information. 

Open a command prompt, and drag in the python script

Make sure there's a space.

Decide whether you want to use Field of View (FOV) or the camera settings (Sensor Size and Focal Length)

For FOV, put 

--fov ##
(replace "##" with the estimated field of view)

For Focal Length, put

--focal_len ##/##
(replace "##" with the sensor size and focal length, respectively)

Add a space. 

Drag in the video to be tracked.

Another Space.

Set the Destination for the mdd file (I usually drag in the video again, and change the filetype to ".mdd")  

Mine looks like this

Hit Enter, and off it goes!

Anyways!! We hope this is useful to someone out there! At some point we'll be releasing it to a wider audience, but in the meantime just wanna make sure it works for all you here!

And unfortunately, as I say in the video, while we super want this to work on your machine, there's a lot of variables to account for, so no promises. That said- I've been able to successfully install it on every windows machine I've tried, so I'm optimistic!