"Headstart" Service Level

At roughly half the cost of standard facial animation, this completely new service level uses Image Metrics’ proprietary technology to automatically generate high volumes of high-quality facial animation for secondary characters in games or for pre-visualization purposes.Headstart creates a headstart for any animation team—building a foundation of facial animation to be repurposed by your team or upgraded to IM’s pro service level—depending on your creative and resourcing needs.

The Headstart service level is just that—A headstart into animation that is in sync with your video performance-- straight out of our system with little or no animation tweaks done to your curves by our team. Headstart will closely match the video performance 1:1, gets your team the foundation and groundwork for a great piece of facial animation. It will not include head or tongue animation, yet It is meant to get your team 70-80% of the “grunt work” of facial animation out of the way (lip sync, timings, blockings, eyelines). These results are meant to be re-purposed by your team. Headstart offers little or 0 artistic iterations from our team once delivered.

Includes:

• Capture and transfer of the actor's performance to the rig with consistent quality.
• Expression sheets established with client creative leads establish core characters and performer translation onto any CG character rig.
• An ouput of performance-based animation curves with a pre-defined, consistent density of key frames.
• Fast turn around. (Up to 2000 frames per day per animator)
  NOTE: Rig & production must be qualified at this service level.