Faceware Technologies, provider of markerless 3D facial motion capture solutions, has announced an SDK for its real-time facial mocap and animation technology, Faceware Live. The Windows Native C++ SDK, will enable developers and creatives to build their own real-time, interactive applications. SDK users can allow live player-to-player chat in games, live interactive displays and activations, and even integrate the SDK into their own production tools and processes. Faceware will be speaking about the capabilities of the SDK at SIGGRAPH 2017 (Booth 741) from Aug 1-3.
“With the rise in VR/AR/MR, interactive marketing, and the use of CG, we’re seeing a growing number of inquiries from many different markets,” said Peter Busch, vice president of business development at Faceware Technologies. “Rather than addressing each and every request, we’ve created a SDK to enable developers to develop the tools they need to meet their own needs. We’ve got some amazing use cases I can’t wait to talk about.”
Features of the new SDK include:
- Windows Native C++
- High-frame-rate tracking, with no visible latency
- Over 100 APIs developers can use to track and animate faces in real time
- Create facial animation in real time from a person’s face on video
- Tracks 82 landmarks on the face and streams over 40 animation controls
- One second camera-to-face calibration
- SDK can track facial movement from a live camera feed, a video file (e.g .mov file), or an image sequence (e.g. .jpg)
- Works with almost any camera or webcam, including head-mounted cameras
- Easy to adjust camera settings for optimizing the user experience
- Tools to multiply and adjust animation output values to match your characters
- Simulate animation output for easy debugging and testing your character animation before use
“We’re really excited to put our real time facial tracking technology directly into the hands of developers,” said Jay Grenier, director of software and technology at Faceware. “Faceware Live has or is being used for a number of real-time applications, such as Hasbro’s live-streamed social media announcement for Monopoly and the recent Macinness-Scott installation at Sotheby’s ‘Art of VR’ event in New York. And now, with Faceware LiveSDK, the community is about to get a fantastic new tool to develop their own amazing applications.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More