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[turnstyle]

Just wanted to say first the tool is awesome!  I'm new to the Source engine and having a hell of a time figuring out how to make VTA's and everything needed for Faceposer.  The nice thing about the tool it really makes everything pretty artist friendly.  The VTA and facial animation setup on the other hand asks a lot from an artist.

Is this something that is possible?

[wallworm]

It's certainly on the TODO list; but to be honest, I haven't done VTA yet. I expect that as soon as I get around to attempting it, I will investigate the ins-ands-outs and what I can do to make it less painful.

Feel free to send ideas on what you think it should do; if you have any friends who have input, they are free to share input as well.

[wallworm]

I've started the groundwork for adding VTA support. I've sent emails to both Wunderboy and Cannonfodder asking for a couple new features that will make the process easier to incorporate into WWMT... but even if they don't, I should be able to make it work.

Essentially, the workflow will be like this:

• You make your Model as you normally would... including the mesh with a morph target that needs the VTA.
• You tell WWMT that meshes with Morph modifiers (or the Di-O-Matic Morph-o-Matic modifier) should be treated as a VTA export target
• You Export*

*The export phase may have to be preceded with a call to a WWMT utility to create keyframes for each morph target. One request for Wunderboy and Cannonfodder is to let the program specify frames at export rather than have to create them manually... if they don't have the time to accomodate then I'll have to make a helper function to automate that step. We'll see if/when they might add that.

I won't start the actual programming on this until I know for sure if they are going to add these features or not as it will affect the way I have to deal with it... and I don't want to have to do it twice.

[wallworm]

So I have started the groundwork for adding VTA support. Cannonfodder has already sent me an updated VTA exporter that has MAXScript integration... but there are problems at the moment. I'm not certain if/when Wunderboy will have time to do the same.

In any event, I expect to have a beta of this in a couple weeks... so anyone who wants to help test it when ready should let me know... since this is an aspect of Source I'm not really familiar with and will need testers before I actually release WWMT with VTA support. Preferably those who have experience doing facial animation in general and/or for Source.

I'm adding support for the standard Morpher modifier as well as Di-O-Matic's Morph-O-Matic (since I own it and am familiar with it). If there is another facial rigging system anyone wants support for, let me know. If it's free I may consider adding support; for commercial one, I'm not likely since I've already got Di-O-Matic's tools and unwilling to pay for another.

[wallworm]

For the record WW not only has VTA support these days, but it will also create flexcontrollers, etc. I know this is an old thread but I'm just updating info.

Making Source Facial Animations with WW