Faceware Technologies is a facial motion capture company that creates hardware and software products that can create animation from video.[1]
History
Faceware dates back to 2003 with the Hitman and Grand Theft Auto titles. The concept came out of the University of Manchester (UK) and was originally offered exclusively as a facial mocap service to the entertainment industry under the Image Metrics brand. In 2008, they partnered with Double Negative to adopt the Faceware products directly into their visual effects pipeline. The company Faceware Technologies spun out of Image Metrics in 2012 and began offering standalone facial mocap software and hardware to the entertainment industry. The core team behind Faceware has been in the animation industry for decades. The idea behind Faceware Technologies was to make dominating facial mocap products that bring digital characters to life.[2]
Faceware has been used on hundreds of projects in and outside of the entertainment industry. In the video game space, some notable projects include Destiny 1 & 2, Call of Duty Advanced and Infinite Warfare, Grand Theft Auto III, IV, and V, Red Dead Redemption, Shadow of War, FIFA, NBA2K09-18, Madden18, and Star Wars Battlefront II.[2]
Work with Cloud Imperium Games
Faceware Technologies relationship to CIG dates back a number of years. In addition to the FOIP feature, CIG was already using Faceware's Analyzer and Retargeter software in the animation production for Star Citizen, including Squadron 42.[2]
In 2016 Cloud Imperium Games approached Faceware Technologies to integrate their real time Face Over Internet Protocol (FOIP) technology directly into the engine and allow game characters to interact and emote directly in real time, driven by players themselves.[1] Coincidentally, Faceware had been working to develop their realtime product offering within their Interactive Division, which opened in 2016. CIG was the first customer to contact Faceware.[2]
Faceware’s technology has been used to produce thousands of digital faces in some of the world’s most popular video games and films. Star Citizen is the very first game to use this production-quality facial technology as middleware running in-engine.[3]
Discussions have been ongoing between the two dev teams for the most part of a 2017, but the bulk of the integration has been completed in the month or two leading up to Gamescom 2017.[2]
While this can work with almost any webcam, in order to convey the best experience, Faceware started developping in parallel the Faceware Motion Sensor designed and optimized specifically for the facial tracking of players.[4][3][1]
External Links
Trivia
- Star Citizen crashed the Faceware website not once, but twice during the debut of the FOIP feature. Faceware has brought on additional staff since the demo.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Star Citizen: Faceware Announcement, Star Citizen, Youtube, 26 August 2017
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 An Interview with Faceware, relay.sc, 23rd of September 2017, archived
- ↑ 3.0 3.1
- ↑ Faceware Motion Sensor Update, facewaretech.com, october 2018, archived
