Faceware Technologies—an innovator and provider of markerless 3D facial motion capture solutions—announced the upcoming release of its Shepherd motion capture sync software. This brand-new software automates Faceware’s ProHD headcam recording, and integrates with industry-leading body motion capture systems, such as Vicon and Optitrack, to sync facial and body mocap recordings on Windows PCs and tablets. 

“In most mocap recording sessions, operators are working with one software package for body mocap, and another for facial mocap. This adds a lot of complexity and a lot of work for your operators,” said Peter Busch, VP of business development at Faceware Technologies. “Shepherd syncs a studio’s face and body mocap pipelines, providing a more unified, succinct and automated motion capture process—something that is a key initiative for our users.”

Shepherd gives facial motion capture operators the ability to control recording and playback of multiple Ki Pro® video recording devices. Shepherd instantly simplifies any motion capture shoot by eliminating the need to manually track take numbers, file names, and recording times. Because of Shepherd’s novel ability to start and stop facial recording at the body system’s direction, the facial motion capture operator is empowered to focus on the most important aspect of any capture shoot: the actor’s performance.

Shepherd currently connects to Vicon and Optitrack mocap systems to provide facial motion capture recordings that are in sync with body motion capture recordings. Shepherd also provides valuable tools for producers, like the ability to easily transfer clips from multiple Ki Pro® devices simultaneously, as well as export a detailed list of recorded clips for review, editorial, or to be fed directly into an existing Faceware Batch Pipeline. Shepherd will be available via a Closed Beta with select partners starting this month. A wider Open Beta period will follow in November  with a public release scheduled for early 2019. 

Faceware’s software products identify the movement of an actor’s face from video and apply that movement to a CG character. Together with its head-mounted and stationary cameras, Faceware’s technology has been used successfully in movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Walk.