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LIFESTUDIO:HEAD Pipelines and Time-Saving Features
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LIFESTUDIO:HEAD Pipelines and its Time-Saving Features in Brief
Rapid Development
A standalone LSHead.exe (on the right side of the above picture) is a tool for rapid development - for effective head modeling and facial animation in no time:
- Modeling - you can do it from a head prototype by just moving shape sliders
- Also, you can create heads in one click with automated Head Generator
- Also, for each created head you automatically get a set of models with different LOD - "for free"
- Texturing - you can apply and mix ready-to-use facial textures from texture libraries shipped with LS:HEAD
- (No UV-mapping headache - you can use these textures immediately)
- New features in version 2.7 help you to produce high-realistic textures just from photos
- Animating - you just drag and drop ready-to-use facial expressions from the Animation Library onto tracks along the timeline
- Facial expressions from unlimited tracks will be smoothly mixed along the timeline - your model can speak while smiling and blinking and shaking head, etc
- You can start animating immediately - even while modeling (toggling Modeling / Animation modes)
- Note, any LS:HEAD animation applies to any LS:HEAD model
- In particular, animations for one LOD immediately apply to models with different LOD
- Automated LipSync - adds lip-sync animation tracks generated from speech sound files
- You can batch process many hundreds of speech files in one click - from the command line
- Note, LipSync is language independent - you get ease of localization
Then, we offer the Import-Export plug-in for Maya and for 3ds max, that allows using the LIFESTUDIO:HEAD facial animation in 3ds max or Maya's environment. The plug-in also helps to attach LS:HEAD models to bodies in Maya or 3ds max and to combine head and skeleton animations.
Use the Muscles Setup plug-in if you need to embed LS:HEAD animation controls into your own very specific models (these are models you cannot shape directly from the LS:HEAD prototype).
Once you've finished the artwork under Windows on PC, LIFESTUDIO:HEAD SDK allows you to use the created model and animations in your real-time applications on PC, and on PlayStation 2 and Xbox/Xbox 360 as well - "author once and reuse everywhere".
Besides playback of animations, LS:HEAD can help you to implement advanced features in your game; you can:
- Provide user interface to create player’s personal heads (avatars) in game
- Create heads and faces simulating laws of genetics
- Generate crowds for different game episodes - using a single prototype
- Use AI to control facial expressions depending on game events
- Issue random LS:HEAD SDK calls to produce varying idle behavior such as blinking or grimacing, and so on.
Depending on LOD, the SDK allows you to animate dozens to hundreds of LS:HEAD models on a screen.
Adaptability
Adaptability - the above doesn't mean that you are limited to ready-made base level artwork shipped with LS:HEAD. You can tweak anything in LS:HEAD to fit your needs!
