OC3 Entertainment and Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc., today announced a new FaceFX audio lip-syncing plug-in technology for Softimage product offerings. The FaceFX plug-in software will establish a bidirectional pipeline with SOFTIMAGE|XSI software-enabling next generation game developers and 3D animation artists to create realistic talking characters with more precise facial expressions and lip-synchronization.
Using only a sound file and an optional text file, FaceFX generates highly realistic facial animation data for use in video games and 3D animations. Because FaceFX powers the facial animation in Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War, mod developers using these platforms will be able to bring their Softimage assets to life in machinima movies and other game modifications using the new plug-in.

“Improving the pipeline between SOFTIMAGE|XSI and FaceFX will help our customers and users tremendously,” says Doug Perkowski, CEO of OC3 Entertainment. “It’s all about creating convincing dialogue sequences. Using Softimage 3D software to create the characters and FaceFX to create the facial animations is a very powerful combination.”

“Like SOFTIMAGE|XSI 3D software, FaceFX is being used in the development of many games-from small start ups, all the way to triple-A game studios,” said Martin Barrette, engineering escalation team lead at Softimage. “Softimage is committed to working with industry-leading applications like FaceFX and Unreal Engine 3 to help game developers create realistic and engaging 3D characters and games.”
OC3 Entertainment will be demonstrating the SOFTIMAGE|XSI plug-in at the Game Developers Conference in booth number 6729 (Moscone Center-North Hall). The plug-in will also be made available for download to the Unreal Tournament 2007 and Gears of War mod development communities.