Faceware Technologies announces Faceware Live, a new product that captures a live actor’s facial performance with any video source, and instantly transfers that performance to a 3D character in real time, at SIGGRAPH 2013.
Los Angeles, CA -- Faceware Technologies, provider of markerless 3D facial motion capture solutions, has announced a new realtime product: Faceware Live. The new software solution, which will be available in Q4, 2013, captures a live actor’s facial performance with any video source, and instantly transfers that performance to a 3D character in real time. Faceware Live will be on display at this year’s Siggraph, booth #809 (July 23-25, 2013).
Faceware Live captures facial performances of actors without markers using either onboard computer video or webcam, the Faceware Head-Mounted Camera, or any other video capture device, then streams that into Autodesk MotionBuilder. After a quick one-button calibration, Faceware Live tracks and solves the performance directly onto any 3D model. If the actor smiles, so too does the model, in real time. Faceware Live currently works on Windows. Future versions of Faceware Live will support additional Autodesk products, operating systems and game engine technologies.
“We’ve seen growing demand across a number of industries for realtime facial motion capture,” said Peter Busch, vice president of business development at Faceware Technologies. “Faceware Live is our revolutionary approach to meeting this demand. This product addresses the many challenges that arise in production and enables rapid content creation for anything from live stage performances to on-set pre-visualization to a desktop tool for animators.”
Faceware Live has many applications, including:
- On SetPre-Visualization -- Directors, actors, and creative leads can see theiron-set facial performances streamed onto their digital charactersinstantly, which helps them gain an immediate understanding of how a liveperformance translates to the digital character. Faceware Live evencaptures highly accurate eye movement, allowing for a true indication ofperformance for real-world production tasks such as 3D camera blocking andplacement.
- Live, InteractiveExperiences -- Digital characters can now interact live with realperformers for an unlimited number of use cases, including broadcasttelevision, corporate events, and tradeshows.
- Desktop ProductionTool- Artists can produce animation instantaneously for rapid prototypingand content creation, all at their own workstation.
Faceware Live consists of two simple components: Image processing and data streaming. In realtime, Faceware Live reads from a selected video source, running at any frame rate, and tracks and solves the facial performance to a set of animation values that are streamed from the application. Autodesk MotionBuilder accepts the stream of animation and applies it to a set of pre-defined controls. Using Faceware’s Character Setup tool the animation can be easily mapped onto any digital character.
“We’ve designed Faceware Live so that the image processing component does all of the heavy lifting. There is almost no work for MotionBuilder other than applying animation curves to your character,” said Jay Grenier, director of technical operations. “This gives you an extremely stable and scalable solution for realtime facial animation.”
Anyone can demo the new software in Faceware Technologies’ booth #809 at Siggraph 2013, July 23-25 in the Anaheim Convention Center.
Source: Faceware Technologies
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
