Hello Awesome Folks!
We have a big update for you today!
Because it is Friday and we don't want to affect your weekend streaming schedule with big changes only minutes before you start streaming, it will go live on Next-Version today, and on the main branch on Monday (or more likely Tuesday)!
Here are the highlights:
Hand tracking with just a webcam.
We're thrilled to announce that starting today Animaze has its own internal implementation for webcam-based hand tracking, sourcing data from the well-known MediaPipe tracker from Google.
Please give us feedback and let us know what you think. We will be fine-tuning it further.
To turn hand tracking on go to Settings-> Advanced Tracking Configuration-> Select Trackers and toggle on Hands under the Mediapipe (Default) Tracker.
Then, to tune the behavior (how much they move and how smooth the motion is) go to Settings-> Advanced Tracking Configuration->MediaPipe Hand Tracker.
In this first iteration, we've focused on webcam tracking users, so cannot yet be combined with the iOS face tracker: to use these new webcam-based hands for now the tracking needs to be all-webcam. If you use an iPhone for face tracking, no worries, we will be updating Animaze so you can mix them up later on.
The foundational work for full body tracking is also done, but we had to concede there is no practical way to accommodate proper face tracking camera positioning (needs to be near), and full body tracking camera positioning (needs to be far), with a single webcam. To have a proper experience, there is a clear need for dual or multi-webcam support, and things get quite complicated. That is partially why full-body mode is not being released today. Head and hands though work just fine and are practical with just one webcam.
We know that for some of you, hand and body tracking are already part of your arsenal, and indeed they have been possible in Animaze since the start using more complex sensors, or VMC support. However, some considered that a bit of a hustle to set up, so in 2024 we are taking steps to make it radically simpler and more accessible.
Core face tracking changes for the webcam face tracker.
The Google Mediapipe Tracker has been getting better and better over the last year so.
That is why starting with this update forward it will become the new default tracker for Animaze webcam, not just for hands but for face as well. Please update your settings accordingly.
If you want to still use the old face tracker version in a transitional period, you can always use the Previous Version branch.
Yearly Historical Licenses
For those of you who prefer getting yearly pay-once-use forever license versions of Animaze rather than supporting its continuous evolution via an ongoing sub, the 2024 yearly snapshots are just around the corner too. We'll have more specific news about them in the next few days. They do include the new hand tracking, and, as always, the active long-term subscribers will get them for free.
An important note for those of you who are not subscribers, and are using Animaze 2023 historical DLCs or older: remember that starting with Monday, to use your historical snapshot license you will have to instruct Steam to run your separate historical Animaze executable, that does not require a connection to any Animaze servers.
To do so, in the Steam client right right-click on the Animaze software, go to General, select Launch options, and select your historical license executable (2022 or 2023).
You will likely also want to migrate your settings and custom content to the Animaze 2023-specific data sub-folder. The new hand animation support that we have built and are releasing today is, like most 2024 features, not part of the 2023 historical license.
As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Tell us what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!
Thank you for being a part of our community, and for supporting indie engines for Avatars and VTubing.
The Holotech Team,
Alex, Catalin and Dragos.