Faceware targets indies and students with free Personal Learning Edition

Faceware has revamped its product range to attract smaller studios and students to the facial capture software.

Chief among the new releases is a Personal Learning Edition, which includes a free licence for both Analyzer and Retargeter. Equivalent to the programmes’ Studio versions, the software can be used for non-commercial individual use, allowing devs to practise their mo-cap skills.

A new rental system has also been introduced. Starting from $340 per month, the offering covers Faceware’s entire suite of software and is aimed at studios working to a tight deadline.

On the hardware side of things, Faceware has added its first non-headcam system in the form of the Pro HD Tripod Camera. The bundle, which includes a camera, lights, tripod and video converters, is aimed at devs wanting to implement facial capture without using a headcam.

Meanwhile, the new GoPro Desktop System collects all the hardware needed for facial motion capture and is said to be aimed at entry-level studios such as indies.

Nine additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Russian, have been also added to the UI options for Analyzer and Retargeter, as well as other improvements.

“What we’ve done in the last year and a half is really take a lot at the market and see where the holes are, where we can grow and expand the company,” Faceware vice president of business development Peter Busch told Develop.

“What we’ve seen is a huge range of indie developers, freelancers and independent studiers. The Personal Learning Edition basically gives use of our products that are typically reserved for multi-million-dollar franchises to that user base.”

Asked whether Faceware would be similarly expanding its educational resources for indie developers and students, Busch said: “We already had a pretty good library of tutorials for some of our commercial software.

“We’re now having a lot more hardware systems for indie developers, so the opportunity with indie developers is fewer of them have had exposure to motion capture software, so a lot of our video tutorials can get people up and running quickly. The reason we use GoPro cameras is because of how easy they are, so very non-technical people can get up and running and use our software quickly.

“New studios and new users can basically learn best practices before they start creating their own content.”