Basefount releases Animcraft 5.0
Basefount has released Animcraft 5.0, the latest version of its software for building shareable software-agnostic libraries of animations.
New features include an AI-based full-body markerless motion-capture system, real-time facial mocap for 3ds Max, and new options for editing MetaHuman characters.
(Full disclosure: the update was released earlier this year, but we’ve only just spotted it.)
Build reusable libraries of stock animations for DCC apps and game engines
Originally released in 2020, Animcraft is designed to enable studios to build up reusable libraries of animation that can be transferred from application to application, and from character to character.
The software ingests keyframe or motion-capture animation, retargets it to new characters, and exports it in the native formats of DCC applications and game engines.
It works with rigged characters created in a range of common DCC tools and game engines, making it possible to transfer animation between 3ds Max, Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Unity and Unreal Engine.
Users include a long list of games and animation studios, mainly in China and South Korea, although recent updates have improved the English-language documentation.
Animcraft 5.0: built-in full-body markerless motion-capture
New features in Animcraft 5.0 include an AI-based markerless motion-capture system, capable of extracting full-body motion from videos of “any format, length and size”.
The motion can be imported to characters with any rig structure that Animcraft supports, including any FBX skeleton.
Users can adjust the output by editing animation smoothing parameters and the timing of toe and ankle anchors in Animcraft’s automatic foot-locking system.
Processing is done on the user’s local machine, and is GPU-accelerated via CUDA on NVIDIA GPUs.
The system only supports footage from a single camera, and of a single actor, although the option to capture multiple actors simultaneously is “coming soon”.
Despite video being processed locally, usage is capped at 365 minutes of footage per year, after which you have to buy a top-up package to process more video.
Real-time facial motion capture for 3ds Max as well as Maya
3ds Max users also get support for real-time facial motion capture on models of iPhone and iPad with TrueDepth cameras.
Animcraft automatically extracts key facial expressions from the camera feed, generating a library of universal facial expressions.
Maya users have been able able to use a similar workflow since Animcraft 2.0, via Basefount’s accompanying free Animcraft iOS app.
Workflow improvements
Other changes in Animcraft 5.0 include the option to import and export animations to Maya AdvancedSkeleton character rigs without the need for manual remapping.
The update also adds new options for editing weights in Maya facial rigs, particularly to the regions of the face surrounding the eyes and mouth.
Conversion of facial rigs between Maya and 3ds Max is now a “one-click” process.
Updates to the MetaHuman toolset
The software’s MetaHuman toolset also gets an update.
Introduced in Animcraft 4.0, it makes it possible to read and edit DNA files for Unreal Engine MetaHuman characters.
The update makes it possible to write point position, skinning and blendshape data to DNA files, and adds batch support for mirroring expressions.
Pricing and system requirements
Animcraft 5.0 is compatible with Windows 10+. The online manual describes Linux and macOS versions as coming “soon”, although that has been the case since version 1.0.
The integration plugins support 3ds Max 2016+, Blender 2.83, Cinema 4D R20-22, Maya 2016+, Unity 2017+ and Unreal Engine 4.23+.
The software is rental-only, with the Standard edition costing $259/year. The Advanced edition, which includes the MetaHuman DNA editing tools, costs $599/year.
Read an overview of the new features in Animcraft 5.0 on LinkedIn
Read a full list of new features in Animcraft 5.0 in the online documentation
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