|
Faceware Technologies is an American company that designs facial animation and motion capture technology.〔〔 The company was established under Image Metrics and became its own company at the beginning of 2012.〔〔 Faceware produces software used to capture an actor’s performance and transfer it onto an animated character, as well as hardware needed to capture the performances.〔 The software line includes Faceware Analyzer, Faceware Retargeter, and Faceware Live.〔〔 Faceware software is used by film studios and video game developers including Rockstar Games, Bungie and 2K in games such as Grand Theft Auto V, Destiny and Halo: Reach.〔〔〔〔 Through its application in the video game industry, Faceware won the Develop Award while it was still part of Image Metrics for Technical Innovation in 2008. It won the Develop Award again for Creative Contribution: Visuals in 2014. Faceware received Best of Show recognition at both the Game Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco and SIGGRAPH 2014 through the Silver Edge Award. ==History== Image Metrics, founded in 2000, is a provider of facial animation and motion capture technology within the video game and entertainment industries. In 2008, Image Metrics offered a beta version of its facial animation technology to visual effects and film studios. The technology captured an actor’s performance on video, analyzed it, and mapped it onto a CG model.〔 The release of the beta allowed studios to incorporate the facial animation technology into internal pipelines rather than going to the Image Metrics studio as they had in the past.〔 The first studio to beta test Image Metric’s software in 2009 was the visual effects studio Double Negative out of London.〔 In 2010, Image Metrics launched the facial animation technology platform Faceware. Faceware focused on increasing creative control, efficiency and production speed for animators. The software could be integrated into any pipeline or used with any game engine. Image Metrics provided training to learn the Faceware platform. The first studio to sign on as a Faceware customer was Bungie, which incorporated the software into its in-house production. Image Metrics acquired FacePro in 2010, a company that provided automated lip synchronization which could be altered for accurate results, and Image Metrics integrated the acquired technology into its facial animation software. Also in 2010, Image Metrics bought Character-FX, a character animation company. Character-FX produced tools for use in Autodesk’s Maya and 3DS Max which aide in the creation of character facial rigs using an automated weighting transfer system that rapidly shifts facial features on a character to create lifelike movement.〔〔 Image Metrics raised $8 million in funding and went public through a reverse merger in 2010 with International Cellular Industries. Image Metrics became wholly owned by International Cellular industries, which changed its name and took on facial animation technology as its sole line of business.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=What is the history of Image Metrics Inc and the latest information about Image Metrics Inc? )〕 Faceware 3.0 was announced in March 2011. The upgrade included auto-pose, a shared pose database, and curve refinement. Image Metrics led a workshop and presentation about Faceware 3.0 at the CTN Animation Expo 2011 titled "Faceware: Creating an Immersive Experience through Facial Animation."〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Image Metrics to Host Faceware Demos and Workshop at CTN Animation Expo 2011 )〕 Faceware’s technology was displayed at Edinburgh Interactive in August 2011 to show its ability to add player facial animation from webcam or Kinect sensor into a game in real time. Image Metrics sold the Faceware software to its spinoff company, Faceware Technologies, in January 2012.〔〔 Following the spinoff, Faceware Technologies focused on producing and distributing its technology to professional animators.〔 The technology was tested through Universities, including the University of Portsmouth. Faceware launched its 3D facial animation tools, software packages Faceware Analyzer and Faceware Retargeter with the Head-Mounted Camera System (HMCS). Analyzer tracks and processes live footage of an actor and Retargeter transfers that movement onto the face of a computer-generated character. The Head-Mounted Camera System is not required to use the software. Six actors can be captured simultaneously. Faceware Live was shown for the first time at SIGGRAPH 2013. It was created to enable the real-time capture and retargeting of facial movements. The live capture of facial performance can use any video source to track and translate facial expressions into a set of animation values and transfer the captured data onto a 3D animated character in real time.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Face Off With Faceware Live )〕 In 2014, Faceware released Faceware Live 2.0. The update included the option to stream multiple characters simultaneously, instant calibration, improved facial tracking, consistent calibration, and support for high-frame-rate cameras. In 2015, Faceware launched a plugin for Unreal Engine 4 called Faceware Live. The company co-developed the plugin with Australia-based Opaque Multimedia. It makes motion capture of expressions and other facial movements possible with any video camera through Faceware's markerless 3D facial motion capture software. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Faceware Technologies」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|