17 Feb 2015Developer postOriginal post (opens in a new tab)

FaceRig Beta 0.980 with new UI now live on the Nextversion Branch.

Hello Awesome People :)

FaceRig Beta v 0.978 (build 443 Holotech Studios - Feb 17 2015) just went up on the "nextversion" branch.

As you might know, every two announcements we like to remind everyone that FaceRig is still in development. Before purchasing FaceRig, please read the program description and announcements carefully (as well as the System requirements, and OS requirements).

Here is the latest change-log :D.

Added the new UI implemented with the CoherentUI SDK.
- all floating windows are now implemented as fixed dialogues inside FaceRig's main window
- Avatar/Backgound/Props browsers now have thumbnails and keyword based search functions.
- Better controls for light tuning.
- Top menu has changed as follows:
  - "Reset to Defaults" button has been removed, we will probably add a master reset to default in the Preferences tab of the General Options dialog
  - "Sound Loopback" button has been moved to Sounds tab of the General Options dialog
  - "Look at Camera" button has been moved to Behavior tab of the Avatars dialog
  - "Karaoke Panel" button has been moved to the side menu
- Special Actions tab is now Behavior tab in Avatars dialog
- Default Avatar/Skin/Background have been removed, FaceRig will open with the last Avatar/Skin/Background set before it closed
- added a Graphics tab in General Options were you can change ShadowMap Quality and Resolution (we plan on adding more options). Known issue: you must also change the resolution in order to apply ShadowMap Quality changes. This will be fixed in the next version.
- added Key Bindings tab in General Options.
- Parental Control is now a separate tab in Preferences (General Options dialog) and is default set to OFF.
Other Fixes, not related to UI:
Trying to load a .midi file instead of a .kar file into the Karaoke player no longer causes a crash.
Various fixes in regard to upper and lower limits on expression units.
Recording a performance no longer auto-toggles on sound loop-back.
Added support for basic motion blur (now both on dx9 and dx11)
Known issues:

The manual and User guides are not yet updated to reflect the new UI (we will aim to do this as we approach deployment on the main branch).

The key binder:

avatar rotations/movements work only if Alt key is pressed
Mouse Scroll does not register
some keys may not register properly
there is no "reset to default key-bindings" button, it is planned and will be available in the near future. You can however force-reset the keys by deleting c:\users\\Documents\Holotech\FaceRig\UserCfg\keys.usc (note that this file cannot be edited manually such as config.usc)

when switching to 640x360 resolution FaceRig window will get glitchy. Same for video export at this resolution.

when switching to resolutions above 1280x720 some aliasing will be visible on the HUD (especially on the fonts).

after switching to a new resolution, the interface disappears until the mouse cursor hovers any UI element

Graphics tab does not correctly show the default (currently selected) options

Auto-calibrate from the Sounds tab of General Options is temporarily disabled.

Dx11 mode still has issues with secondary lights (this is to the best of our knowledge the last issue to be fixed before we can remove the "experimental" label from the Dx11 mode.)

Web Camera feed still occasionally freezes after exporting a performance as a webM movie.

Chrome offers better compatibility for the FaceRig Virtual webcam than Firefox, in web-based chat applications ( such as Omegle or Chatroulette).

Skype for desktop is the variant of Skype that works with FaceRig (the Metro "app" version of Skype for Windows 8.1 does not see the FaceRig Virtual Webcam for now).

changing the destination folder for saving screenshots sometimes results in a bug that makes the screenshot files be saved to and the folder not displaying correctly in Preferences>General within FaceRig

when autosave is enabled (General options>Preferences>General) it can cause the wrong values to be loaded from the default created .avc files; the way to go around this is to go to the desired avatar>Customization>Features and click Reset to Defaults.

We will keep this update on the "nextversion" branch for a few days so that you good folks can help us by testing it together with us, (so we all make sure nothing too major got broken when transitioning to the new UI), and then we will promote it to the default branch. Once we do that, we will also do the Early Access switch and the EULA update (that we've detailed in the previous Steam announcement). ETA for that is Tuesday 24'th of February.

If you are wondering about how to use the "nextversion" branch here are the steps:

Open Steam Client. Go to Library -> Software
Right mouse click on FaceRig -> Properties
Go to BETAS tab, click in the "Select the beta you would like to opt into:" drop down, select "nextversion"
Close window. The FaceRig program will update to the "nextversion" branch.

20'th of February UPDATE

We just did another bug fixing update. Appending it here to prevent announcement spam. Will write a new announcement once all these go live on the main branch.

FaceRig v 0.980b (build 446 Holotech Studios - Feb 20 2015) - nextversion branch

Change log:

solved bug when exporting movie was done and video feed got stuck and didn`t return to webcam
solved bug with video source/karaoke sound-video sync, in some cases the sound got lost
fixed no sound detected issue
added noise gate meter
autocalibrate noise gate is now available again
added free move to props. This feature is activated by a button in the props dialog. The keys are the same as those for moving the avatar
when closing FaceRig, the current avatar/skin would have been saved, but at start up the default skin was loaded. This issue is now fixed.
ShadowMap Quality is now applied even if you don't change the resolution
avatar rotations/movements work only if Alt key is pressed issue is fixed
key bindings now have a reset to defaults button
after switching to a new resolution, the interface disappears until the mouse cursor hovers any UI element. This issue is solved.
Load/Record Performance, Load Video, Export Video, Load Customization Mask, Load Karaoke file have separate initial directory when opening the open/save dialog and when selecting a file, the folder is saved for subsequent use.
fixed screenshot folder issue. Default screenshot folder did not exist, so files were saved in FaceRig's installation directory. It is now set as default to c:\users\\Documents\Holotech\FaceRig\Screenshots\
fixed spot light direction issue. When loading a background for the first time (or loading without autosave feature on), the angle values would have been wrong.
predefined textures are now available for custom avatar masks or 2D background backdrop

Known issues:

at 640 x 360 resolution the motion blur is still glitchy. A ghost like figure of the avatar is displayed. A quick fix to this is to set the motion blur strength to a minimum value. To do this, go to Environments dialog, Postprocessing tab, Misc tab and set the motion blur strength slider to the far left.
Karaoke playlist panel can only be closed from the close button on the panel. If you try hiding it by re-clicking the Karaoke button on the side menu, the playlist becomes invisible, but the buttons still have actions binded.

That's about it for now :). Please let us know what you think either here , on e-mail or on the forum :D.

We wish you an awesome week,
The FaceRig Team.