Oh the irony.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

LOL.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

What is it... 6 or 7 years ago I paid 1K for markerless mocap software.
I'd load it with footage from my camcorder or a downloaded video and it produced very nice results.
For Clean-Up... you needed to have curve editor experience to achieve great results.
No complaints, here.

Today... the "sovlers" are more advanced and you have less clean up...
But...
Technology does get cheaper over the years, but faceware is amongst the latest...
With awesome solving and retargeting results.

I easily see why there highly accurate "High-End" results would cost 1200 bucks.

Faceware RT's price is a little steep, of course, but --after seeing their regular software price on their site-- I kind of expected it.

For my previous movies (made with Carrara), I used  to hire different voice-actors through the Internet, and they would record their lines at home and email the MP3s back to me from all over the continent. I would then put a voice to my characters.

For the facial capture, I thought I would have to have the actors come to my home. That would severely limit my range of actors. Faceware RT SOLVED that problem. The voice-actors just have to own a webcam, film themselves recording their lines at home and send the video back to me through the Internet.

That's what's so wonderful about Faceware RT.



My latest movie THE GOLDEN MAN, and a few others: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIl1EqVCKitZzLqaNnLK0BA

Those video files will be *quite* a bit larger than audio files -- I'll be curious to see what folks come up with as acceptable solutions.

I have WD Mycloud drives that anyone can store to so that's one possibility for me.  It still means that folks without high speed internet will have to spend quite a bit of time uploading things, but it's better than nothing.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

My 7 year old markerless mocap software accepts (mp4) videos. HD and very small.
I receive dozens of videos a week to process.

FW is newer and it should accept mp4 without problems.

Facial mocap is crucial for getting those magical results in your project. When I first got involved with iClone just over two years ago, I spent a lot of time researching facial mocap software, and methods for getting facial mocap into iClone. I got trial versions of multiple facial mocap softwares, including Faceware RT. Faceware RT, by far, by a landslide, by all measures gave the best results, and was easiest to use. I could use my iPhone to record my face, and it gave incredible facial mocap results, easily. After the initial process of making Faceware RT familiar with my face the first time, I could record my face with new performances, and Faceware remembered my settings and produced super high quality facial animation.

The problem was, I had to use the 3D software Maya to put the results to an avatar. Reallusion Character Creator came out soon after, and I wanted the facial mocap all in one suite of products... Reallusion. I talked to both Reallusion, and to Faceware to try to get it to happen. At the time, it couldn’t be done.

Now it’s happening. I’ve been checking in on the forum for the past 2 years to see if Reallusion created a facial mocap solution, and I just found this topic discussion. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the quality is as good within iClone as it is within Faceware RT. If it is, then I advise everybody who has trouble paying the price to do what they can to collect the money and pay the price, because it will be worth it. The price they already suggested is so much lower than a Maya user has to pay for Faceware RT (about $3500) to get the same results. 

This news is HUGE for iClone users. I’m currently seeing what I can do to budget time on my other creative projects so I have time to rejoin the fun with iClone with Faceware.

Peace.

High res videos are NOT needed for facial mocap.
A simple Standard Definition camcorder.. 10 feet away will provide very accurate results.

FW takes it to a new level with ease of use.
...can't see how some think it'd be sold for $600 to $800.

Well... it looks like the price will be kinda high for this one. TBH, It does stink that it'll be expensive, but I do see the price point given FWs pricing on its website. This is premium software not some stop gap. The price reflects that sadly.

I'll defend the "troll" a bit that chimed in earlier. I don't think he was laughing at the situation of others (or a troll), but stating that a payment plan type thing would be quite a stretch as a feasible option for the software. Could it be done? Absolutely... but aside from subscription services, I don't know of any payment plan for professional software. Half now and half later seems like a loan at a bank may suffice if that is the case. And to have to do that for a hobby seems like a less than ideal situation. I don't believe anyone is laughing at the devaluation of currency abroad or anyone's financial status. That's no laughing matter. Quite the opposite actually.

It's the great dilemma; hobbyist software or professional software? Reallusion could have come up with a cheap solution (and perhaps they will later). But you get what you pay for. A cheap solution would produce cheaper results. Perhaps we'd be happy with that? I personally wouldn't. I'd probably be using the animation tools instead to get better results. With open scripting maybe someone comes up with a cheaper solution later down the road?

Reallsion is at an interesting crossroads, it's been a low cost hobbyist, previz software. Now more and more pro aspects are being incorporated and we applaud them. With those new features come slower renders, higher costs and more powerful gpu requirements. They are really pushing boundaries with what they're doing. I do hope they are able to keep the core user base intact. I don't personally think and certainly do hope this doesn't divide the community. Like Ani mentioned above, most people here on the forum are pretty level headed. I think we can all respectfully discuss and even help one another out. Perhaps I'm just too much of an optimist I hope not!

My "NEWEST" Latest  Movie Made With Amaaaazing iClone


—> High Noon”ish” in Narrow Valley<—