Mixamo startup has simplified the task of 3D character animation

The company has launched the Face Plus service, which allows developers to “animate” game characters. To do this, you just need to sit in front of the webcam so that the program can copy your facial expressions.

Face Plus eliminates the need for painstaking study of facial expressions of heroes. It is very timely that the service appeared at the very moment when mobile application developers began to look more and more towards 3D.

Using the service assumes the presence of a regular webcam, Unity editor, plus a subscription to the Mixamo service, which costs $ 1,500 per year per developer.

“We used webcams that can be purchased for $20 at Best Buy. And there was no need to calibrate them,” said Stefano Corazza, CEO and co-founder of the company.

The service was developed with the help of AMD, which became a strategic investor in Mixamo. AMD helped Mixamo create the tool through OpenCL, an open standard for cross-platform development of multithreaded programs for modern processors.

Mixamo had to test its software using hundreds of images and videos of people of different ethnicities, all ages and both sexes.

The company has already raised about $11 million, and its clients are Microsoft, EA, Sony, Blizzard and Gameloft.

Source: techcrunch.com