Faceware at Siggraph 2013
July 2013 – Motion capture is a big part of the Siggraph conference. It is segmented into a number of different technologies for full body motion both optical and sensor based, coupling to rigging systems and facial capture. Facial motion capture is being used heavily for both film and TV CGI and video games. A leader in this space is Faceware Technologies. Their professional headcam system has been one of the standards the past 12 years. It consists of the helmet, LED lighting, multiple camera mounts and multiple lenses. These systems include a genlock and timecode sync.
As these professional systems, which are available for both purchase and daily rental, are still too expensive for the independent game and film developers. To address this need, Faceware Technologies has introduced a low cost system that features the GoPro Hero 3 Black edition camera. Using a custom designed helmet that has multiple mounting options, the facial capture system is available for under $,2500. The GoPro system does not include genlock and timecode, and also has resolution and details limitations as compared to the professional system, however it does support full HD capture with on-board recording.
In addition to the hardware systems, they were showing their new “live” realtime facial motion capture software. The system is markerless and lets you stream in realtime to MotionBuilder and other applications & game engines. It uses standard USB cameras connected to the host computer. The system workd quite well, even in the environment of the exhibit floor, however, since it is a standard resolution camera, and doing real time processing, there are some limitation on the tracking of people with facial hair, glasses and certain contrast ratio issues on the subject.
The GoPro based system and the Live system are available now. The company also revised thier licensing policy to a simple perpetual plan.
