Starting Your FaceGen Customizer Project

Head Model Preparation

1. Open FaceGen Customizer.

2. Click the New Project button. The New Project dialog opens.
3. Enter names for the Project and the model set.

4. Click the button at the right of the Data Directory path to select the folder that you want to save the project data into. The Choose Directory dialog prompts you to locate the folder. Click OK to accept it.

5. The first screen in the Customizer process is the Head Model Preparation screen. Click Next.

6. The Manual Registration screen informs you that you have to use 3D modeling software to rescale and reorient the mean face to match the target model. This process should be done before you start the Customizer project. In the case of DAZ's Victoria 4, I have prepared six files, that are verified to work as morph targets with the original Victoria 4 geometry (with the exception of the mean head, which has different geometry that is compatible with the internal morphs of FaceGen). It's not necessary to place them into the project folder that was created in the previous step, but I moved these six files there to keep all of the files together.
   • V4Head: Head geometry only, morphed to fit mean head
   • V4LEye: Left Eye geometry only, morphed to fit mean head
   • V4Neck: Neck geometry only, morphed to fit mean head
   • V4REye: Right Eye geometry only, morphed to fit mean head
   • V4Head-ALL: Head, Neck, and Eyes geometry combined, morphed to fit mean head
   • V4MeanHead: The FaceGen mean head, resized and oriented to match the scale and position of the Victoria 4 head.

7. If your geometry is prepared, click Next to continue. You see the Check Registered Models screen. In this screen you assign your mean face, and your customized geometry.

8. For the reoriented mean face, click Browse and locate the rescaled and reoriented mean face.

9. Click Add to select your V4 face models. One at a time, add the V4Head, V4LEye, V4REye, V4Neck, and V4Head-ALL OBJ files. The order is not important.

10. Click Next to continue. The Summary screen displays the files you added and the names of additional files that are generated.

Integration Setup

1. From the Summary screen (shown above), click Next to begin the Integration Setup process. FaceGen Customizer informs you that this step prepares cache files that are specific to the head you have set up. Click Next to continue.
2. The Obtain Neck Seam Vertices screen appears. In this screen you click to select the seams at the base of your model's neck. In the case of Victoria 4 there are 80 neck vertices. Make sure that you don't inadvertently select other vertices (as these vertices will not move when the morphs are generated). Also make sure that you select ALL of the vertices relating to the neck. There are instructions on this screen for the shortcuts you need to rotate, scale, translate, add, and remove vertices. When you select vertices, rotate the head and position it such that there are no other "hidden" faces behind it that you can accidentally select. After you've selected your vertices, click Next to continue.

3. You come to the Create Cache Files screen, which informs you that the cache process can take 10-20 hours (this varies based on CPU resources). Click the Start Setup button.

FaceGen Customizer then calculates all of the files that it needs to create the morphs for your head.

After this is complete, you come to the Model Integration phase, which will be covered in a separate tutorial.