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image Metrics has today made its new Faceware 3.0 tech available to game developers and those in parallel creative industries.
The 3.0 update to the popular animation software incorporates several new features that promise to ensure creative consistency within animation teams. The tech has also been conceived to increase productivity, and been designed with an emphasis on ease of use.
“Last year’s launch was a direct response to our customers’ desire to internally own creative control of their work. This year’s release is the answer to our customers’ stated definition of that creative control,” said Robert Gehorsam, Image Metrics CEO.
“We’re delighted to provide the entire creative community access to the identical technology we’ve used in-house to great success over the past several years.”
Faceware 3.0 provides a marker-less video analysis technology and artist-driven performance transfer toolset, and purports to deliver exceptionally high-fidelity, convincing facial animation without the time drain of alternate methods. The tech also lets studios handle all creative decisions and iterations in-house.
New features – as detailed by a statement to the press by Image Metrics – include:
• Auto-Pose: Automatic pose suggestion quickly shows artists the most extreme and physically different video performance frames that should be added as relationship poses.
• Shared Pose Database: Increase efficiency and consistency with a shared pose database allowing lead animators to establish a character’s ‘feel’ prior to the animation process.
• Curve Refinement: New curve refinement tools allow animators to take results output from the retargeting stage and adjust them to suit the intended usage.
