KeenTools 2021.4 (9 December 2021)

The latest update is here with a lot of anatomical enhancements of the head geometry, especially eyes; new proper neck that can be not only shaped quite precisely but also tracked with FaceTracker; the new experimental possibility of tracking without pre-calculation; new FacialExpressions node for Nuke, and many more inspiring things.

Anatomical Enhancements

The most important thing about this release is that we’ve significantly upgraded the head geometry with new anatomical eyes and the long-awaited full-size neck. The statistical model was also strengthened with more datasets, to improve both diversity and the ability of FaceBuilder to replicate intricate facial features. Please note that with this update, heads built with FaceBuilder older than v2021.1 become obsolete.

Neck Tracking

The new neck was added in FaceTracker as well — you can finally track neck movement in Nuke, which opens up new possibilities like the next-level ageing and de-ageing, better relighting, easier face replacement, and so on.

Precalc-less tracking

As for the tracking, from now on, it is also possible to do it without pre-calculation of the optical flow. While still in its early days and should be considered experimental, it might appear quite useful for simple tracking tasks. The work on improving the performance of this workflow is already ongoing!

As a side-note, the refinement workflow was improved a little — now it doesn’t require keyframes in the last and the first frames. Instead, it goes through all tracked frames when the ’Refine All’ button is pressed.

FacialExpressions node

Apart from updating the existing nodes, our team has also been working on a new one — FacialExpressions! Its purpose is to enfold facial expressions created in FaceTracker or FaceBuilder, so they could be effortlessly applied to different heads, allowing easier face replacement and tidier texturing pipelines. Please try it and share your feedback with us!

All new features and improvements are available in the newest Nuke 13.1 and Blender 3.0.

As usual, 30 days of the fully-featured trial included upon the first installation.