Capcom licenses ATR’s AniFace

Capcom has used AniFace, a Maya plug-in developed by Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), for the upcoming game Sengoku BASARA 3.

AniFace automatically generates lip movement data from a small number of predefined mouth shapes and voice data, with the results editable on three key parameters – cut, power, and decay.

The tech, which is available in English and Japanese as a Maya plug-in, is the result of a research project supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology.

Capcom evaluated the system last May, and Sengoku BASARA 3 will be the first title to use the technology.

"Recently, the challenge of how to further technological advancements in the area of high quality digital content creation was pursued in more detail in order to keep pace with the ever-increasing production demands of next-gen consoles and CG movies," said the company.

"In the future, as technology continues to expand, we can expect big changes in the workflow associated with 3D character animation, especially in the area of CG movie production. We can also expect that new technology will enable efficient production of facial animation for both pre scoring – sound that is recorded before the movie is created – and post scoring production methods.