Facial tracking for the most efficient high-performance facial animation on the market
Motion capture technology innovator, Vicon, has announced the launch of Cara, a pioneering facial motion capture system. The latest addition to the Vicon suite of digital motion capture systems is available to order now.
Cara is designed to enable film and games studios of any size to bring characters to life through advanced facial tracking and capture. It offers users improved efficiency and performance for games and film production, and sets the standard for affordable, accessible and high-quality character realism.
The system is available as a standalone product or can be seamlessly integrated as part of a full Vicon motion capture workflow, opening up the performance capture market to a whole new range of potential customers. Its modular design gives users complete flexibility when dealing with the captured data. Users can take up to four high definition images and pass them either through Vicon’s CaraPost software to automatically produce 3D points or their processing pipeline of choice to recreate the actor’s performance on a computer generated model.
Based on 30 years’ motion capture experience, Vicon has developed Cara to be reliable, future proof and to offer unrivalled quality, enabling users to focus on the creative process rather than breaking shoot momentum with failed or aesthetically unacceptable visualization.
Ben Guthrie, motion capture supervisor, Framestore, said: ‘Head mounted cameras are way forward when it comes to large scale capture stages. Through Beta testing of Cara we’ve seen at Frame store that Vicon is an innovator in the industry. Cara offers four synchronized high speed cameras with full wireless connectivity, and a robust dot tracking solution that integrates well into Vicon’s existing motion capture products as well as being a solid standalone system.’
Vicon also showcased its recently launched real-time animation software Blade 2 at SIGGRAPH. It enables the most effective production pipelines and workflow efficiency for motion capture projects, delivers the best real-time performance on the market and integrates seamlessly with Vicon’s T-Series and Bonita camera ranges.
Blade 2’s Quick Post feature gives users the option to automate the post processing workflow. Reconstruction, labelling, fixing and solving can all be achieved with one click, reducing the need for intensive manual clean up and back-end editing.
Vicon CEO, Imogen Moorhouse, said: ‘the need for a modular, high-performance and accessible facial motion capture and tracking system has long been recognised within the industry. This makes the launch of Cara very exciting and instrumental to the future of facial motion capture. Vicon’s long heritage and industry expertise allows us to develop practical innovations to enable our customers to push the boundaries of what is possible. Whether the user is a start-up studio or a long-standing Hollywood giant, high quality facial motion tracking is now accessible to all.’