Kitty is fully-rendered image created in Softimage’s Face Robot. All images © Avid Technology Inc.

With last month’s launch of Softimage | Face Robot, “the industry’s first software application dedicated to the creation of believable facial animation for high-end film, post and games productions,” Bill Desowitz discusses the business ramifications and challenges with Softimage’s vp/gm Marc Stevens and special projects manager Michael Isner.

Bill Desowitz: Talk about the business plan for Face Robot and the significance for Softimage and potentially for the future of facial animation.

Marc Stevens: We’ve been in the character animation business for over 20 years, we think our talents are focused and can make the most difference in terms of added value to the industry. We were doing some soul searching back in the fall, going back over the last couple of years about the importance of character creation, where the tools aren’t quite where they should be in terms of delivering great performances. It all kept pointing back to the face. Michael and his team for the last couple of years did research and we came to the realization that there’s a real opportunity here to make an impact on the industry. And the face is such a broad and complicated thing. There’s a reason why there aren’t amazing solutions out there. Solving that problem is very difficult. And so that’s a place that we thought about focusing our attention, and not just from a business side. We didn’t want to just throw out another feature in a general-purpose product. That’s why we decided to separate out the face with a separate product that became Face Robot: a separate streamlined UI to deal with the face and really a separate team dedicated to some extent to just worrying about problems around the face.

Michael Isner: I think it’s an interesting question you pose about the future. It’s that idea of the future of a face product that is the birth of this whole thing. Really, if you look at the way 3D software has existed traditionally, it has evolved from the kind of computer graphics and mechanical, logistic problems involved in both making a movie and getting a 3D software package together. So it’s a lot of tools that a movie transforms around, how transforms move over time, and F curves and all these things are coming from the world of programming computer graphics and trying to meet the entertainment industry half-way. And so Face Robot is looking at the problem the exact opposite way. What if the entertainment industry was a mature industry in terms of computer graphics? What would be the main focus point based on the needs of entertainment? Well, if you look at something mature like the film industry, the most important thing is acting, and the most important part of acting is the face. Like Angelina Jolie: if her face is not in the scene, they use a body double. And so it’s really clear that these performances need a lot of specialized energy and assistance from people who can improve the process. So that’s really the vision of Face Robot: a team of people and an environment dedicated to making this platform to improve 3D acting.

BD: What has been the response since the launch, including at GDC?

MS: We’re overwhelmed. So there’s more interest in the product than we have capability to respond to it. And so we’re spending all our time coming up with complex deployment plans to try and meet all the interesting surrounding the product.

Motion capture plays a key role in the software’s use.

BD: What about the reaction to the high price? There’s been some sticker shock with the full Designer package selling for $95,000 and the Animator selling for $15,000.

MI: It depends who you’re talking to. For people who are already investing a lot of money in entertainment, they’re likely spending a lot more than that working on the face. For the student or someone who is casual about the 3D, it is a lot of money. But looking forward and what 3D really is, it’s not just the work of enthusiasts — it’s also a profession. And like construction, there is a need for professional, industrial tools that address the hard needs of production.

BD: Yes, of course, but I spoke to an animator at a major studio who thinks it will be hard to justify such an investment. He estimated that every td would require the Designer and every animator would require the Animator.

MS: Well, I think if you [limit it to] those tds and animators that concentrate on the face, it comes out to one td working on the setup and several animators animating one or many faces. There are a couple things in terms of the price. This product is very much focused on quality and processing large amounts of facial animation. For the people who have those two problems, it makes a lot of sense for them. And for those who only have a job here or there to do or don’t require super high quality, it doesn’t make any sense. But we are looking at some alternatives like a rental program. Give a comparison: Let’s say you do motion capture— you’re not going to go out and buy a Vicon system to do that one shoot; you’re going to go to a service bureau and get it done. That’s what we’re looking at in terms of Face Robot too. Some type of rental model would make more sense for you if you only have one job to do.