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"Makes facial animation a breeze. Because it renders interactively on the fly
there's no need to render and re-render over and over."
- Tom Roth, Animator on Shrek, Stuart Little, Scooby Doo, Dinosaur and Hercules

For years, Facial Animation has been regarded as the most complicated,
time-consuming part of the character animation process.

The average CG feature animator is given 4 days
to animate 7 seconds worth of dialogue.

What if I could show you a way to do the same, 7 seconds of feature-quality,
full facial animation, but have it take only ten minutes to produce?

Timothy Albee's FACIAL ANIMATION
by Mac Reiter

Facial Animation Working Environment
- click for larger image

FACIAL ANIMATION is the program I've always wished existed for animating dialogue and facial performances.

As a fourteen-year veteran of both Traditional and CG animation, I've collected a huge list of ways in which things could be done better, easier, more efficiently. I spent years looking for these concepts put into elegant, usable form. The technology existed, but the tools didn't... until now.

Teaming-up with programmer, Mac Reiter, compiling long standing wishes from veterans of Walt Disney Feature Animation, PDI, Rhythm and Hues, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Warner Brothers, we created FACIAL ANIMATION to make available a tool that makes facial animation almost like becoming the character yourself!

- Timothy Albee

FA Main Window

The Main Window is your portal into the complete control over every nuance of your character's facial animation.

• Real-Time Sub-Division Surfacing
  (User-definable Sub-Patch Level, on-the-fly!)
• UV Texture-mapping
• Up to 8 real-time GL Lights
  (full control over position, color and Intensity)
• GL Transparency
• Background Color control
• "Faster than real-time" interaction
  (over 60 frames-per-second for most models on most desktop systems!)

FA X-Sheet

Patterned after Traditional Animation Exposure Sheets, FACIAL ANIMATION's X-Sheet is the fastest way to "Scrub" and Animate dialogue.

• Unlimited Tracks
• Select ranges for Drag/Cut/Copy/Paste and "Punch-In/Punch-Out" editing
• Import/Export tracks between animations
• Remap data between objects with different morph names
• Modify animation data without ever leaving the X-Sheet's visual interface
  (Including Left/Right Morph Strength and Quad-Key Balance!)
• "Shuttle" and frame-by-frame playback audio and animation, directly from the X-Sheet window
• Single-Frame audio playback
• Click-and-drag on the audio waveform to "Scrub" through your animation, watching and hearing the action play-out as fast as you drag your mouse
  (over 60fps interaction for most models on most desktop systems!)

• "Scrub," "shuttle" and frame-by-frame playback audio and animation, directly from the Curve Editor windows
• Select ranges for Drag/Cut/Copy/Paste and "Punch-In/Punch-Out editing"

Dialogue Curve Editor
- click for larger image

Dialogue Curve Editor

• Gently sculpt performances by finessing Morphs between 0% and 100%
• "Plus" Morphs by pushing them beyond 100% or below 0%
• Control Left/Right Splits of symmetrical Morphs

Puppeteer Curve Editor

• Easily manipulate Puppeteered, Quad Keys in a familiar, Curve Editor interface
• Push Morphs beyond 0% and 100%
• Control Left/Right Splits of symmetrical Morphs

FA Morph File

Facial Animation's Morph File is a user-customizable, visual and text-based representation of all Morphs within your current object.

• Unlimited number of Morphs
• Morphs are grouped based on Morph name prefix
• GL Morph Icons can be resized by dragging on Icon boundaries
• GL Morph Icons can be rotated for clearest visibility of morph details
• Drag-and-drop Morphs onto X-Sheet or Curve Editor to create Keyframes

FA Facial Palette

Like mixing paints on an artist's palette, limitless varieties of emotions and expressions can be created, as you watch your animation play-out...

...Puppeteering the quirk of a smile -- the arch of an eyebrow... all in real-time!

• Unlimited number of Palettes
• Automatically creates root Palettes, exactly how you want them, based on Morph name prefixes and suffixes
• Automatically Splits symmetrical Morphs into Left and Right targets for feature-quality, asymmetrical performances
• Palettes can retain one of 11, precision-crafted Blend Modes for the ultimate in smoothness when transitioning between Morphs
• GL Morph Icons can be rotated for clearest visibility of Morph target details
• Create new Palettes by dragging morphs from Morph File

FA Playback Control

Built on the concepts behind professional audio and video editing decks, Facial Animation's Playback Controls are designed to become transparent to your animation needs.

• Instantly record and playback your Puppeteered performances in real-time
• Precisely control your record frame-rate to easily hit every nuance of a Puppeteered performance
• Record performances with, or without pre-roll
• Play your animation, backwards or forwards from 10% to 100% of your chosen frame-rate to easily evaluate your animation to feature-quality perfection

FA Surfaces Panel

See your model exactly as you want to. Facial Animation's Surface Panel settings can be applied to all GL representations of your model at once, or on a window-by-window basis

• Full UV Texturing
• Surface Colors
• Gray-Shaded
• Wireframe
• Hidden
• Change your view settings while your animation is playing

Starting a Scene

FACIAL ANIMATION's windows are non-modal, meaning that all can be positioned, shown or hidden to create the layout that works best for you! (Perfect for multi-monitor workstations!) And FACIAL ANIMATION stores up to three separate layouts, so you can quickly choose the best view for the task at hand!

• Select your audio file and FACIAL ANIMATION automatically sets your scene's length, (modify your scene length and Frames-Per-Second rate with standard Minutes, Seconds and Frames numeric input).
• Choose your model -- FACIAL ANIMATION knows where to find all your UV Texture-Maps because it automatically reads your LightWave configuration file! (Content Directory may also be set manually.)
• Click on the New Track button in the Morph File's Dialogue group, and you're ready to start animating!

Adding Dialogue

With "faster-than-real-time" playback of single-frames worth of your audio file, FACIAL ANIMATION's Dialogue Scrubbing functionality is the best in the Industry, making finding the precise position of your "sound-shapes" a snap!

• Click-and-Drag on the audio waveform in the X-Sheet to hear your frames of dialogue played as fast or slow as you move your mouse!
• Watch your pre-existing animation play-back in perfect sync with your audio!
• Drag-and-Drop Morphs from the Morph File onto the X-Sheet (or Curve Editor) to create Keyframes!
• Press Play to watch your animation play-back in real-time, instantly!
• (Yes, it really is that easy!)

Polishing Dialogue

Nothing beats being able to modify your animation as it's actually playing, so go ahead, press Play, and tweak your masterpiece to perfection while watching your animation play... at speed... all in real-time!

• Select a range of Keyframes, precisely position them in time, while your animation is playing!
• Cut, Copy and Paste Keyframes, even between dialogue tracks!
• Adjust Morph Strength from either the X-Sheet or Curve Editor by ctrl-clicking on the desired Keyframe.
• Precisely balance Left/Right Morph Strength of each Keyframe to quickly achieve feature-quality asymmetrical performances!
• With 20 levels of UNDO, you can experiment with confidence!

Puppeteering

In the past, a requisite for a great animator has been the ability to hold onto a feeling for the days, weeks or even months it took for an animator to finish a scene.

Using the magic of Puppeteering, you can capture a performance in less time than it took to read this sentence!

• Use your mouse to blend between the four Morph Targets of your selected Facial Palette, in real-time, as your animation plays out!
• "Bumper Zone" outside Capture Area softly eases into Morph Extremes.
• Eleven, unique Blending Modes provide the perfect mathematical merging for any Facial Palette combination!
• Let FACIAL ANIMATION automatically create your Facial Palettes for you by parsing your Morph Target names, or drag Morphs from your Morph File to create your own!
• Lock a Blend Mode to a Facial Palette and see a visual overlay of that Blend Mode for quick identification.
• Test your Facial Palettes, then record your Puppeteered performances, with or without pre-roll!
• Record your Puppeteering as slowly as 10% of your target FPS, giving you all the time you need to nail every nuance perfectly!
• Select a range of Keys and Punch-In/Punch-Out to re-record a specific frame-range!
• Drag, Cut, Copy and Paste selected Keys.
• Adjust the relative position of any Puppeteered Quad-Key by ctrl-clicking in either the X-Sheet or Curve-Editor.
• Add an unlimited number of Tracks with confidence, knowing that FACIAL ANIMATION's groundbreaking technology plays hundreds of tracks as quickly as it plays a handful!

Cross-Platform Export

Once you're happy with your animation, you can mix-down your data to a platform independent .MDD file, or export to LightWave's Morph Mixer format!
(Morph Mixer export requires all morphs to be pre-split in Modeler, supports LW versions 7 through 8.)

Timothy Albee's FACIAL ANIMATION
by Mac Reiter

Yes, feature-quality facial animation can be this simple.

Download Demo Version

Video clips of FACIAL ANIMATION's working environment
(video duration: 6 minutes)

OFFICIAL FACIAL ANIMATION Discussion & Support Forums
at Mac Reiter Creations!

TAFA Discussion Forums on Kurv Studios - Support and Training for Artists, From Artists!