Faceware Technologies, an animation-specific technology firm has announced their newest product, Faceware Live, which shows incredible promise in its contribution potential to gaming animation.
The new software, available in late 2013 is capable of live rendering facial expressions and transferring them onto a 3D model. The implications of this in terms of the gaming industry cannot be understated. Not only does the mean that gamers can expect more realistic, spot on animations in their console games, but it means that Hollywood actors, who have already begun making their way into gaming with voice acting and such, will begin to play a much more pivotal role in a game.
Beyond the story, now the gamer can get a real performance from a person, not a person manipulating a program to give a performance. It’s an entirely new level of depth to gaming; the likes of which we have only just begun to see with more primitive forms of motion capture technology.
When asked to comment, Peter Busch, vice president of business development at Faceware said, “We’ve seen growing demand across a number of industries for real-time 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.”
There are, of course, serious implications to this technology that reach far beyond the world of gaming, and Busch is very aware of that. We’re all excited to see what new developments will come out of the implementation of Faceware Live, stay tuned to Gamingbolt for updates.
