Puppet Works, a Toronto company specializing in tactile input solutions for 3D animation, has unveiled a new product with potential applications in the commercial production industry – Face Works.

Conceived in 1995, Puppet Works was founded by several employees of Alias (now Alias|Wavefront), a 3D computer animation software company. Bob Prentice, the president and one of the founders of Puppet Works, discovered that the process of trying to control animated characters using the traditional mouse and keyboard computer setup was inefficient and didn’t offer the artist enough room to be creative. With this in mind, Prentice and his colleagues formed Puppet Works in an effort to create alternate input solutions that would bring the animator/artist closer to the technology.

Even with the discovery of this market niche and the launch of his company, Prentice continued on at Alias for two to three more years, moonlighting at Puppet Works. In fact, Alias was so supportive of his team’s work that it became a development partner.

Prentice explains: ‘Frankly, we were building a product to add value to their product, so there was no competitive component to it.’

Alias is not the only development partner for Puppet Works. The company is designing products that ‘can be characterized as empowering the user to be able to work faster and better with existing 3D animation packages including Softimage, Side Effects, Kadera and Studio Max.’

Puppet Works has also been selling the award-winning motion-capture suit (Body Tracker and Body Tracker 2) since 1997.

Unlike the other products Puppet Works sells, Face Works is not a motion-capture system. John Morch, vp sales and marketing at Puppet Works, explains the new tack the company is taking.

‘The facial-capture technology has a basic problem. A lot of very extreme visual characters [are difficult] because humans can’t make those faces. You have to have a Jim Carrey on staff,’ he says.

Thus, Face Works employs the traditional 3D animation program system of channels to control different parts of the face and cause different expressions. The value Face Works adds is in the input technology – no more limits imposed by mice and keyboards. Now, numerous channels can be adjusted simultaneously.

Polishing with precision

‘We’ve just moved all those virtual controls down to the desktop, to our panel,’ says Prentice. ‘It’s a motorized slider panel, similar to an audio mixing board. Then, we added a software plug-in that we make for Maya [another 3D animation program]. And we hook those two things together so the animator can control the character in a much more intuitive way.

‘It helps the animator do a lot more and to keep polishing and refining their animation. They can go back and see that the slider’s value is just slightly wrong – not enough expression in one pose, you just add a little extra value and reset the keyframe. It’s much more like a musician or an artist would interact [with their work],’ Morch explains.

Before discussing the potential application of Face Works for the spot industry, Morch talks about the doors to 3D animation Face Works will open for less technologically skilled animators and artists.

‘I’m not saying that every cel animator is going to have to use a computer,’ Morch begins. ‘But we’re giving them a tool that can get them in there, and they can be highly productive in a 3D animation package. If they have a sense of timing and a sense of motion, they can get it going right away.’

Also, he says the faster working speeds allow animators to spend more time improving the quality of their work. ‘It’s a classic – you give an animator a week to do a shot and it doesn’t matter if he gets it done the first day, he’ll still work harder to get it better. And that’s what we want, to help the animator make it better and better.’

Having only rolled out Face Works one month ago, Puppet Works is looking forward to seeing the results of its product in the commercial world. The company has already placed the product in several (as yet unnamed) production houses, and apparently, the panel is already having an effect on the industry.

‘We’re seeing that some of their bids have changed in scope and quality depth because of the Face Works panel,’ Morch says.

Puppet Works believes Face Works will be extremely valuable for longer spots and commercial campaigns. This is one of the reasons the company moved to downtown Toronto this year from its original location in Burlington, Ont. The new studios are spacious and allow the company to offer motion-capture services, as well.

Face Works will be sold by a ‘dealer channel [that] is being built right now,’. says Morch.

Prentice describes the ‘walk-up-and-use’ style as a revelation, generating excitement among animators at the trade shows and conferences where they are showing the product.

In fact, Morch expects Face Works to be in use around the globe. He has even developed a strategy, integrating Face Works into animation programs in schools. Close ties with Sheridan College has Morch hoping that this new input technology will allow schools to offer cross-disciplinary animation programs, perhaps integrating 3D and cel animation course streams.

Says Morch: ‘Because typically they’re quite separate, I think these cross-programs will be very exciting.’

With no other companies offering these input solutions, Prentice looks to a successful launch of Face Works, as he continues to develop other new products for the future. *

-www.puppetworks.com