Animaze - 5 Common Questions We’d Like to Answer

[devops]

Hopefully, you’ve heard the exciting news by now - Animaze left Early Access recently, and the full version is now available on Steam! We’re thrilled to see the response from fans who supported us through our time in Early Access and from new adopters who picked up the software on November 17. Despite that positive feedback, there are still some FaceRig users who are hesitant to jump into Animaze. In this post, we’re taking a few minutes to answer five common questions we see in our communities and across social media.

I love FaceRig. Why discontinue it instead of updating it?

We know some fans are disappointed about the discontinuation of FaceRig support and updates. We get it, we love FaceRig too! But the reality is that in 2017, we were facing a situation where we realized the future of FaceRig just was not sustainable. The world of VTubing had changed immensely since our 2014 Early Access launch, and it was easy to see these changes were just the beginning. It was clear we needed a different approach, one that allows avatar voices to be independent of big tech companies who were starting to step into the metaverse. That’s when we made the difficult (but also exciting!) decision to eventually sunset FaceRig, as in 2017 FaceRig's third-party engine team had disbanded, so it was only a matter of time until the 3D model import tools, the engine and all associated libraries would stop being compatible with OS updates. That was when we started planning for Animaze, which would use an in-house engine.

In 2018, we secured external investors and started building the Animaze engine and technology from the ground up. Our planning focused on a different, more metaverse-centric, avatars-as-a-service paradigm. We knew we wanted to build an indie alternative to the “big tech” solutions that would eventually materialize, and we were thrilled to launch Animaze on iOS in Autumn 2019 and PC in Autumn 2020.

To clarify, for those who already own FaceRig, FaceRig will stay in your library (you can still use it just as you did before), Animaze and FaceRig are different software suites. However, from now on, after many years of FaceRig, Holotech's entire focus will be on Animaze as the FaceRig third-party engine and toolset can no longer be reliably updated, patched or fixed.

I heard online that this is just a cash-grab, is that true?

Not true. For most users wanting to move from the free Animaze tier to a paid tier, Animaze costs $19.99 per year.

Starting with September 1st, 2022, Animaze also has two perpetual license versions, sold as DLC upgrades to the free tier on Steam, that offer all features and content we've built and released from the very start of Animaze, until September 1'st 2022.

As mentioned above, Animaze is free for anyone under the Basic subscription. In that tier, you get unlimited streaming time, unlimited imports, the ability to use your iPhone as a camera and tracker, and the ability to use additional trackers, including audio-based lip-sync and many more advanced configurations.

The next step up is our Plus subscription at $19.99 per year or $3.99 per month. This is for users who want to upgrade their streaming game and grow their channels. You can check out the full details of subscription tiers here https://www.animaze.us/faq/animazedesktop/subscriptions , but Plus includes everything in the Basic subscription, along with removing the watermark, streaming at 60 FPS, a dedicated capture window, and more.

The third tier is for professional streamers - the Pro subscription. This tier includes commercial rights and is only intended for streamers who earn more than $6,000 USD per year from Animaze powered content (or $500 USD per month).

For those who do not want to be on a sub plan, we have the two corresponding perpetual license versions, sold as DLC upgrades to the free tier on Steam, via a one-time transaction.

Is Animaze just a way to introduce microtransactions to users?

No, but it’s important to note that buying your avatars separately from an asset store is actually the norm in the world of VTubing and avatars. Either privately commissioned or bought off an asset store, avatars are more often than not bought for sums ranging from 100 USD to sometimes multiple thousands of dollars.

Animaze offers a good roster of free avatars, and if you are a subscriber you get access to all Holotech Original avatars without having to spend anything extra (than the sub fee), you can also import avatars from external stores like Nizima; you are not limited to just what is offered by us or others on the store, you can always build avatars, props, backgrounds, emotes and import for free (in the case of bad game microtransactions, most time you are limited, and you cannot bring in your own stuff).

The prices in the Animaze asset store are among the lowest there are for non-unique avatars (avatars that can be bought and owned by multiple people) but that does not make them the same with gaming microtransactions.

We are still working on the tech and legal infrastructure to open the in-app store to external creators so they too can sell worldwide, but it takes time. The purpose of the avatar store is in line with the meta-verse goal to enable independent artists worldwide to make a living from selling their work there.

Can the full version of Animaze be built in a cheaper way?

When it comes to virtual avatar options, whether built by large or small studios, there are products or services in the space that may be cheaper than our $19.99 per year Plus subscription.

In most cases, cheaper options are made using ready-made parts such as an existing commercial gaming engine.

Using existing commercial gaming engines, ready-made import plugins/libraries, leveraging hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering and QA work put in by larger companies can absolutely drive the development cost down and allow small teams to build impressive cross-platform avatar software quickly.
The “hidden” cost of this path, though, is the degree of dependence on big tech.


To ensure avatars’ independence from big tech and protect “free speech” equivalent in the metaverse, someone needs to take this harder mission of building an independent avatar solution from the ground up. That path is harder, and it does cost more.

Building on top of Unity (or Unreal) is great. Both are fantastic tools built by great teams. It would have been much less work for us to build Animaze on an external commercial engine. However, in the end, those avatars' future evolution and fate would be in the hands of large company Board of Directors.

Of course, we are glad that large and small teams exploring the path of using an existing engine exist. It 100% should be explored; and we love the effort and the results. But, that approach comes with other types of costs/structural risks. If a third party or a partner changes their terms of use, it could impact users and avatar voices.

For us, the $19.99 yearly subscription fee is important in enabling us to walk a different path, where we can ensure avatar independence in the coming metaverse. It allows us to pay fair salaries to our engineers, artists, and support staff, and it allows us to build things from the ground up and offer a robust indie alternative to a potential big tech engine monopolized avatar world.

Why should I switch from FaceRig to Animaze?

Since Animaze is a free-to-use app, the best way to answer this question is by heading on over to Steam to download and try out the app for free! With the first tier of subscription options, the Basic tier, you’ll get unlimited streaming time, unlimited imports for backgrounds, avatars, and props, the ability to use your iPhone as a camera and tracker, and more.

Other reasons to switch from FaceRig to Animaze include Twitch integration, our character creator tool, emotes and more! Check out our Features Comparison infographic in the launch announcement .

That covers our common questions for now, and we hope this helped answer some questions you might have about Animaze. We’ll be back soon with more updates and news from Holotech, but in the meantime, feel free to reach out any time with questions or comments on our Discord.

[Melphia]

What if you have an Android phone like a Samsung Galaxy or Pixel phone? Even if the camera tech isn't on par to the latest iPhone camera tracking.

[devops]

Originally posted by Aitheia:

What if you have an Android phone like a Samsung Galaxy or Pixel phone? Even if the camera tech isn't on par to the latest iPhone camera tracking.

In this case we recommend using simply regular webcam-based tracking which is still quite good; there are currently no significant advantages to using a Pixel or a Samsung Galaxy over a decent PC-connected webcam.

Only the iPhone with TrueDeppth has the actual depth-sensing camera hardware and ArKit tracking libraries that make the set-up hustle be worthwhile.