The latest release of animation and rendering software Autodesk Softimage 2011 is all around more complete. Several new features in the 3-D rendering software do quite a bit to make it a stronger contender in its field, including new lip-syncing features for Face Robot, new support for kinematics in ICE, better shaders, as well as others.
Softimage used to be owned by Avid Technology, but was acquired by Autodesk in 2008 and has seen quite a few upgrades since. Autodesk is one of the leading companies in 2-D and 3-D software for entertainment, engineering, and design.
At the top of the new feature list in Softimage 2011 is the addition of automatic lip-syncing for the application’s Face Robot facial animation toolset for creating complex facial animations. Users can now upload audio tracks, and Face Robot will automatically sync the character’s lip, jaw, and tongue movements along with the audio.
The feature works with any .WAV file, and the user needs to type in the text of what the audio is saying before Face Robot can automatically generate the lip and facial animations related to speech. Users can even customize the specific animations (referred to as “visemes”) to change the facial movements for specific sounds, or edit and fine-tune any animations.
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FACE ROBOT: Quickly generate facial animation based on an audio file with new automatic lip-syncing in Face Robot. A new dedicated view for controlling the phonemes and visemes offers function curves to help modify their contribution. (Autodesk)
As a note, Softimage 2011 comes with a full library of lip-syncing facial animations, so most users will be fine without having to make too many changes. It automatically animates the lips, jaws, and tongue of a character, in accordance with the audio.
This is a great addition, considering that it will save quite a bit of time otherwise spent perfecting speech animations. The animations are also pretty accurate—something that may start to show in better animated characters for movies, games, and TV shows, as artists start to leverage this feature.
For those unfamiliar with Facial Robot, the toolset can quickly generate 3-D faces that can be quickly animated or used for motion-capture animations. The upgrade gives Softimage a real competitive edge over similar applications. The new lip-syncing toolset in Face Robot makes it a must-have for anyone working with facial animations.
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