Faceware integration is no more expensive than Perception Neuron integration so I am not sure what all the complaints on price are from.
iClone is cheap and you get face keyframing, procedural gesture based animation for face, and viseme included in that cost and soon curve editing to get high quality results using those solutions.
For people that are looking at ultra low cost face tracking solutions you are going to get better results using these tools. For those who can afford the computer that iClone needs to run on and/or perception neuron and Faceware is not expensive. Most solution that give similar results cost significantly more. I look at the Facerig videos in the other post and the mouth is really really bad. Watching some non marketing videos on Youtube show the tracking is very very bad. It is designed for doing twitch videos and such not for real face tracking use. But like I mentioned in that thread nothing is stopping you from using the live stream from Facerig in iClone 7. Probably get better results using Brekel than this if you are looking for a cheap solution to integrate yourself into iClone.
For iClone as a company it would make no sense to invest effort into this. The results are so bad they would show iClone in a bad light.
So iClone has a lot of people who use it just for fun and I understand ANY of the 3rd party integrations are kind of pricy. Which is why they good good value right in the software. For the market Reallusion is really after, indie artists and game developers, what they offer is a steal compared to what they used to have to pay for for these features. For high-end studios, well honestly this isn't on their radar. They don't blink at spending million+ for a single mocap setup. So John Martin was right they are offering something for all budgets and skill levels.
If you think Faceware in iClone is too expensive then you must think Perception Neuron in iClone is too expensive. They are very close in price and both target indie users. People using iClone for fun do not need either to make quality work. I bet if they factored in all the money they spend on content and such they will see it starts to add up. Over the last year Reallusion has been working with professionals (people making money using their products) in production situations (one is mentioned in the SIGGRAPH video) ours was another and learning what Pros need from the software too. Back when you used to NEED Max, the license for Max alone cost more than Faceware integration and you were MUCH more limited in what you could do back then.
Reallusion looked at the market for facial capture and they integrated the cheapest solution that gives solid reliable results, which also happens to be the market leader in facial performance capture and is used in MANY game and post studios.
You can blame us partially for the Xsens integration. The two companies had already talked and we wanted to use Xsens from the beginning after testing tons of performance capture solutions from both the optical side as well as the inertial capture side. But we got some perception neuron suits because they were dirt cheap and already working in the software. Reallusion was at our offices and even worked with us on mocap and saw the pain we went through with them and how frustrating they were. So much so that we went back and re-evaluated the market and re-met with a lot of the companies again. Xsens once again won out for us and we bought a few suits and a couple licenses to cover our LA and NY offices. We also pushed the two companies to continue talking and find a solution to make Xsens work with iClone. Leave it to Reallusion to get the sweet deal they did for their users. Now Xsens is firmly outside of the market of hobbyist, but if you are making money using iClone it isn't especially when you factor in the labor savings it affords. So for indie studios and indie game developers is is a fantastic solution.
Now the kicker, before iClone to do simultaneous face and body required 3 boxes (one face, one body, one render). Every Unreal demo showing realtime performance capture is a multi-box setup that feeds the render box. The Meet Mike demo using Unreal engine at SIGGRAPH took 5 beefy boxes, very similar to the Hellblade demos (first one used Xsens too, 2nd used Vicon optical capture, face was done with a proprietary in-house depth capture setup from Cubic Motion, a company we also talked to but ultimately didn't fit our needs (standard RGB capture from voice actors)).
iClone at SIGGRAPH in the meantime was running on an gamer box, and was doing realtime face and body performance equal to the hellblade demo. For an indie studio (which outnumber big studios and especially with games generate more revenue) that is groundbreaking.
So Reallusion could have offered the 3D face tracking equivalent of a snapchat filter or they could offer the cheapest and one of the best solutions that fit the needs of a large market who has no problem paying for it. That interview and the other press they got from SIGGRAPH would not have happened if they offered the former solution. iClone would be seen as the software that turns out crap.
iClone users should be super excited as they have access to the same tools that big studios use for a tiny tiny fraction of the price we pay.
My Xsens bill was almost $7400 USD for the suit, $22,500 per location seat of the software and $210 for the license dongle. We bought 3 suits and two license with them. My Faceware bill just for Live Server was almost $3,100. We also had Analyzer seats for our machine learning tools we wrote. Factor in the man hour costs in making the tools work in our pipeline before Reallusion had working alphas and you add many thousands of dollars onto that figure.
So yes, Reallusion are offering amazing options to their users at all price levels and catering to the various skill levels of their users. John was 100% correct in what he said. Users should be thrilled because there is now NOTHING stopping you from turning out quality work that is competitive with what big name studios do for game cinematics and TV. So can people stop complaining to the company who is literally bending over backwards and putting in tons of development hours to try and make you guys happy. If they didn't innovate, Unity and Epic would eat their lunch. They are both working HARD to get the same users. Even without Faceware and Xsens iClone 7 and especially 7.1 are HUGE releases. For a small company like Reallusion who does not have the deep pockets of Autodesk or The Foundry to turn of what they did in the time they have done it is amazing. If one major player picks them up based on their hard work they have won.
I for one am extremely grateful for all their hard work and the amazing deals they are putting together and I am excited to see what they turn out next, which I am sure will result in huge complaining threads too because Reallusion is hungry for marketshare and to make a difference.
Free Range
My IMDB