Why no mesh head smiles??

[Senet Wylder]

Question to all the mesh head makers out there is the world ….

 

I have looked at many mesh heads over the years and am surprised that many do not have big toothy happy smile. There are smiles yes, but few big bright happy smiles. Truly is seems like the smiles are given as nearly an afterthought.

I am curious that so many of the major makers do not seem to even consider such a common expression.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Senet Wylder

[Ardy Lay]

I am going to guess that some tried and the results scared the hell out of them.

[Peony Sweetwater]

Best I’ve found for my av so far:

good smiles are hard to make, probably because bento bones just can’t animate like skin & muscle can, and the result is usually just creepy.

 

[Alyona Su]

8 hours ago, Senet Wylder said:

Question to all the mesh head makers out there is the world ….

 

I have looked at many mesh heads over the years and am surprised that many do not have big toothy happy smile. There are smiles yes, but few big bright happy smiles. Truly is seems like the smiles are given as nearly an afterthought.

I am curious that so many of the major makers do not seem to even consider such a common expression.

It depends on the animator. The Vista Head AO is very good. As for smiles, the simple fact that a true smile is in the eyes more than the lips is where most animator fail.

[Ajay McDowwll]

I ended up getting the Vista Erika AO because it gives me facial expressions that don't make me totally cringe, unlike my Genus HUD... which makes me look like I'm contemplating serial murder.

[Coby Foden]

I tried Vista Erika AO in store. Indeed, it's expressions look pretty nice on Genus head.

Genus head HUD has cool angry "about to murder" expressions in it.
Below some samples from Genus HUD.

[Paul Hexem]

Most mesh head smiles tend to look more like my forum avatar. 

[Pussycat Catnap]

On 2/14/2020 at 8:07 PM, Senet Wylder said:

I have looked at many mesh heads over the years and am surprised that many do not have big toothy happy smile. There are smiles yes, but few big bright happy smiles. Truly is seems like the smiles are given as nearly an afterthought.

When I see words like 'bright happy' it kinda triggers me on this one...

In RL I have never been able to make that big smile. I just physically am not built like that and as a child I took constant grief from teachers over it. While I don't think it's a racial thing now, as a kid in early primary school being the only non-white in classes being hammered on in front of everyone and a few times even disciplined because I didn't have the ability to make that face they all made - it felt that way...

 

So I'm personally glad my avatar doesn't do it, and everyone else now gets to deal with my world on that score for a bit...

I imagine it is for technical reasons - when I've messed around with dials in apps like Poser and Daz3D on figures with a LOT more flexibility than our mesh heads here, I have still found the mouth deforms into some monstrosity way too easily, so sticking to mild expressions just avoids risk...

But I can still get my inner smile going at things being like this.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

To understand the problem get the Black Dragon viewer and open up the POSER. Move into the head section and work with the facial bones to create a Big Bright Smile. I would put money on your first dozen or so attempts being totally creepy.

There is also the problem of how the different head makers rig their heads to the bones. So, a single animation is unlikely to work across all mesh-heads. I have tried animations from others on my Jennifer head. I was not thrilled with the results.

A couple of months back we were playing with the FACE APP in the "LOOK" thread. I was curious why my GA.EG Jennifer head did not have any big smile. Looking through the facial animations GA.EG sells there weren't any either. So, I asked using this picture. "Hey can you make a smile like this?'

I was told that for all the bones in the head there aren't enough to make a good big smile like that one. I'm a major skeptic and never just BELIEVE  person cause they say. So, I've been trying. The results are not good. I think I could eventually learn to make an acceptable smile... meaning one that does not creep me out. But, I haven't yet.

There are 40 to 60+ facial muscles depending on how you count or who you talk too and whether you count muscles mirrored left and right. These muscles are used to convey a considerable amount of non-verbal information. We are reading that micro-information every day and we get very skilled at detecting minute changes in the face, way beyond the ability to recognize people by their face. The result is making creepy smiles that seem fake is easy... The smile in the image is made by an AI software program that knows how to manipulate the face.

In the image below I have my head turned slightly to your right. Notice how messed up that smile is.(Orignal in inset.)

To me this looks more like a 'Heh heh... you just wait a*******e...' type of diabolical smile. Even a small change in the original image (looking off center) throughs the AI off. We are very sensitive to small imperfections and amazingly intolerant of facial distortions. The result is it is very hard to make nice smiles. Not impossible. But, so difficult too few are putting their results out there.