We're back Animoters! We're happy to say that today (Friday 20th of December) we're releasing our next version of Animotive with some amazing new features around UI, VR Mocap Face and Eye Tracking improvements and some major bug fixes!
New Features
User Interface Enhancements
Implemented application-wide tooltips system to better explain different aspects of the UI.
Implemented a UI counter for Spotlight entities, similar to what we have for Cameras.
Implemented in Desktop Mode, the user can frame a Video Camera based on their Scene View camera via a button on the Transform tab of the Camera’s control panel.
Implemented the ability to minimize Tool gizmos (Cameras and Lights) when embodying a Character to help declutter the Scene for performers.
VR-Mocap Face and Eye Tracking Improvements
Split Character face tracking into a separate dropdown for Face and Eyes for more control - allowing users to utilize Oculus Lip Sync for the face and Quest Pro for the eye tracking or vice versa.
Implemented a new combined Quest Pro + Oculus Lip-sync face tracking type that allows users to embellish Oculus Lip syncing with Quest Pro facial tracking expressions.
Implemented an Auto eye targeting system to allow for more natural eye movements without the need for eye tracking.
Implemented the Eye Max Look Angle slider also affects Quest Pro eye movement, so the range of movement can be controlled on a Character by Character basis.
Implemented smoothing for Quest Pro facial animation with configurable sliders.
Scene and Character Tools
Implemented Floor Marks - a new tool to guide character placement in the Scene. The user can press the X button on their hand controller to embody the last embodied character, and press it again to teleport to an assigned Floor Mark.
Implemented that Props and other entities return to their original position when a New Take is created.
Implemented that Entity visibility can be toggled off via the control panel.
Capture and Recording Workflow
Implemented Batch Capture Mode, a Project Level setting toggled on the Takes Panel. When enabled, actors don’t get disembodied at the end of a Capture, and Animotive automatically creates a New Take on any Groups that contained captured entities.
Implemented that the Audio Clip Player time is synced with Timeline time by default, with a toggle added to allow this behavior to be turned off.
Props exported via FBX now have bone skin weights, offering better compatibility with Unreal Engine.
Implemented a batch FBX export to make it easier and faster to export All Takes or Starred Takes.
Scene Management and Utilities
Implemented a Scene Duplication feature, accessible within Scene settings on the dashboard.
Initial implementation of Camera Tally Lights, which turn on when a user has the Camera in full-screen mode, allowing actors to know which Camera is “live” during live streaming/vision mixing-style projects.
Bug Fixes Copy
Performance and Stability
Fixed critical bug on AMD graphics cards that would cause blendshapes to not work as well as occasional crashes.
Improved FBX export times, particularly for Takes with longer durations.
Fixed a data conversion error that was causing loading issues for some Assets with heavy mesh data.
Optimizations and speed improvements for FBX export, particularly for Scenes of long duration.
Fixed a timing issue that could occur if multiple users attempted to join the same Scene at the same time, causing one or more users to not join successfully.
Character and Animation Fixes
Improved the real-time character retargeting algorithm to resolve leg snapping for certain characters.
Fixed an issue with the character’s animation being distorted if switching from XSens tracking to VR tracking.
Fixed a bug where some meshes could be displaced on FBX export, specifically affecting some multi-mesh Characters.
Implemented that characters return to T-pose upon clearing the Current Take.
Implemented that the Character’s face returns to a neutral pose if it is disembodied and has no animation on it.
Fixed a bug that could occur if multiple instances of the same Character existed in the same Scene, where their blend shape values could become shared.
Facial and Eye Tracking Improvements
Removed unused/redundant blend shapes from the Quest Pro blend shape mapping.
Fixed an issue where Character eye tracking wouldn’t display the correct angle on Characters that had a local rotation value on them in T-Pose.
Improved Oculus Lip Sync logic - sped up the mouth close interpolation.
UI and Usability Enhancements
Changed the laser angle on the VR hand controllers for improved user comfort.
Reduced the snap turning increments for greater precision and improved user comfort.
Fixed a hover state bug on the Audio Clip selection dropdown on Character control panels.
Reduced aliasing on some UI components.
Reworked VRUI dropdown logic for better placement.
Export and Asset Workflow
Fixed a bug affecting the export to Unity workflow with VRM/GLTF characters.
Improved Asset spawning logic to reduce occurrences of assets getting spawned outside of the Set.
Implemented that blend shape normals get automatically calculated on Character import.
Increased Asset Import vertex and triangle limits to 1 million and fixed a mesh serialization error affecting some dense meshes.
Audio and Prompter Fixes
Fixed an audio playback sync bug that could occur on Audio Clips that contained silence.
Fixed a bug with MP3 files with variable bit rate which caused de-sync issues.
Made the Prompter scroll speed constant, rather than relative to the Film Script length.
Fixed jitter issue with the Prompter as well as a bug that could cause it not to scroll for the client if the Host’s instance of the Prompter was disabled.
We really hope that the new feature set and bug fixes improves your Animotive workflow and helps you create the stories you want to produce. For a full breakdown of the release notes you can check out the release notes on the Animotive Doc page. As always happy animoting and be sure to reach out on the Official Animotive Discord for questions, support, or showcasing the cool things you've made!