Newby: Questions about Animaze/FaceRig

[andymcintire]

Hello, just tuning in. Two primary questions:

1) How does Animaze/FaceRig compare with Adobe Character Animator for creating custom avatars. I understand Adobe CH is more CPU-intensive, and I gather Animaze is not fully functional now.

2) Does Animaze Studio only run on Windows? I understand there is output to iOS, again, just tuning in.

Thanks in advance,
Andy

[devops]

Hello Andy!

The TL:DR is

1. Yes we consider Animaze better. - But it is best that you try it yourself so you can get convinced of that. (Animaze and Facerig are different software suites though, they need to be evaluated separately ).
2. Animaze PC is for now Windows only, Animaze iOS is a phone App. The is no Mac version right now (unless you run the iOS phone app on a Mac via Apple's compatibility cross-app system - not sure how well that works through)




Happy to answer in detail below.

First, history context: Animaze and Facerig are different software.

Facerig is software that we started developing 7 years ago
FaceRig is now reaching the end of its support and update life.

Animaze is its successor, meant to surpass FaceRig in every single way and fast-track avatars into the future. The animaze engine started being developed in 2018-2019 and was first launched on iOS in 2019.
Animaze PC is currently in Early Access (not yet in its 1.0 form - features are being added, bugs are being fixed). It is more than usable though.


The primary purpose of the Animaze App is to animate in real-time existing (provided) avatars based on real-time motion capture data. Animaze App is not meant for creating avatar models from scratch, but it can import avatars made in a number of external software, via the Animaze Editor (also avalable for free, on Steam).

However, for the people who do not know how to create characters, Animaze does have a lot of existing ready-to-use characters, and an an easy Persona character creator, like in RPGs, where you create a character by just pulling on some sliders.
You can try all that out in Animaze for free.



2. Animaze has two versions
- Windows version that you can find here on Steam and
- the mobile iOS version (called Animaze Avatars by FaceRig).

The Windows version is more complex, is meant mainly for real-time avatar interaction (video calls or streaming), and the iOS (phone) version is more simple, meant more for recording videos.

The Windows version of the Animaze app can use high-end webcam tracking for free and, as a paid advanced feature, it can also connect via Wi-fi to the Animaze iOs app so you can use the advanced iPhone Arkit/ TrueDepth high-quality face tracking to drive avatars on the Windows app.



A note on pricing:

Animaze is free forever for casual use (but it does have some limitations that are in line with what is expected of casual use),. It also has optional subscriptions for power-users /streamers (the most affordable one is 20 USD per year) for unlocking all the more advanced features.

That's about it :) . Eager to hear what your thoughts are :)

Cheers!

[andymcintire]

Thanks for your feedback. My computer is a Mac so I will not be able to use it.

I'm wanting to build and rig models, then workflow through Animaze, so I'm sorry to hear it won't be possible.