Sherman Oaks, CA -- Faceware Technologies, the leading provider of markerless 3D facial motion capture solutions, announced Retargeter 4.0, a major upgrade to its award-winning Faceware software. The new software’s key features, which include AutoSolve, Expression Sets, Tracking Visualization, Shared Pose Thumbnails and Batch Processing, focus on automating more of the facial motion capture process, as well as simplifying creative collaboration. The new software will be on display at this year’s Game Developers Conference in booth #1036 (March 27-29).

Retargeter 4.0 is a lightweight plug-in to Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Softimage and Autodesk MotionBuilder. It is part of Faceware’s Professional Product Line, a suite of facial mocap hardware and software used by some of the most successful franchises in AAA development, including Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, God of War, Halo, NBA 2K, Red Dead Redemption, and many others. Faceware has also been used on Academy Award-winning feature films and Grammy-winning music videos. Most recently, Faceware Technologies products were used to create acclaimed performances in Crytek’s Crysis 3, Square Enix’s Sleeping Dogs, Yash Raj Films Ek Tha Tiger, and the upcoming release of Toei Animation’s Space Pirate Captain Harlock.

“In February, we announced that Retargeter 4.0 is coming. As soon as we did, artists began contacting us to find out more information,” said Peter Busch, Vice President of Business Development at Faceware Technologies. “So in an effort to meet their requests, we’re now disclosing more details. While I can’t reveal all of the features that will make it into the final release, I can say that every feature, especially AutoSolve, focuses on increasing the quality of your starting point and speeding the more mundane elements of hand animating so that artists can more quickly get to the part that matters: perfecting and polishing performances that set their CG characters apart.”

Retargeter 4.0 Key Features:

Expression Sets
An add-on to the Character Setup process, Expression Sets are a group of pre-defined, standard facial poses that are unique to each character in your project. Expression Sets define the style and look of the universal shapes and movements of a character to drive AutoSolve.

AutoSolve
Combining the data from IMPD files generated from Faceware Analyzer along with pre-defined facial poses or ‘Expression Sets’, Retargeter’s AutoSolve can automatically create animation on a video performance with the simple click of a button, giving artists a great first pass in a matter of minutes that they can then fine tune through the award-winning Retargeter pose-driven workflow.

“AutoSolve is a revolutionary step in facial motion capture,” explains Busch. “We are excited to give studios the opportunity with Retargeter 4.0 to really capitalize on the idea of rapid prototyping. Directors, artists, and producers will now be able to judge performance earlier in their production cycle – making more effective use of facial budgets.”