Di-O-Matic announced the release of Maskarad, a stand-alone application that automatically converts the details and nuances of an actor’s video into animation data to animate your characters’ rigs in your 3D software of choice. Maskarad locates and tracks head motion as well as facial expressions and lip movements.
The software also processes the audio track and detects the phonemes’ timing of the actor’s speech. It uses a phonetic engine to break down audio tracks cleanly and can handle many languages (including English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian and German). The resulting animation data works on just any character rig, from blend morph shapes to bones-based rigs as well as complex custom rigs. Demo videos and more information at Di-O-Matic.com.
looks interesting but the video samples so for seem to be a beta/work in progress rather than from a final polished plugin, the head tracking looks okay but the lipsync is rather slappy jawed in the youtube clip i watched.
i look forward to some more professional results as it’s developed.
Hey Steve,
Keep in mind that Maskarad is not a plugin, it’s a windows stand-alone application that exports standard motion files like FBX or HTR.
Motion Retargeting (applying the motion to your own character) is not part of what Maskarad does for the moment, the exported data can easily be imported in numerous applications:
http://www.di-o-matic.com/products/Software/Maskarad/#page=integration
cheers!
/Laurent M. Abecassis