Hello Awesome Folks!
Before proceeding to the latest change-log, let us remind you (yet again) that FaceRig is at this time still in development. It is fun and functional, but it still has bugs and occasional crashes. Read this announcement (click to open) for more info and a look at the EULA before pre-ordering FaceRig.
After you have done that, please look at the minimal requirements and remember that for now FaceRig is Windows-only, and that the mobile/low voltage versions of the listed CPU's and GPU's typically have less performance than their desktop counterparts.
Now on to the update news:
Change log for FaceRig v0.81b (build 320 Holotech Studios - Oct 17 2014) - currently only on the "nextversion" branch:
- modified Pitch shift voice processing effect. Now it features a clearer sound and more options for voice gender bending (first iteration though, it can still sound a bit robotic).
- added option to remove/add hooked keys. Hooked keys may add some lag to overall keyboard input. By default, Hooked keys are OFF.
- hooked keys now ignore F1-F12 keys, as they are not used by the application, outside it's environment
- added push to talk feature (see General Options > Preference tab to activate). Lipsync is off while this option is active and back on while pressing H key (no rebinding available yet).
If upon installing you experience "weird textures" on the avatars please do a "verify integrity of the application cache" through Steam. We have changed the engine version and if you have used community created content in the past, then some old cached files need to be deleted.
Initially we had planned to make this "nextversion" update next week, when more changes would have made it in, but the hooked keys lag bug is quite important for the folks using FaceRig on TwitchTV so we are updating the "nextversion" branch before the weekend specifically for this fix.
A new "nextversion" update will still follow mid next week (as we had planned) that will have more features :
- a first public iteration of the karaoke mode and
- a password protected parental lock so that the responsible person who has made the purchase can opt to lock out avatars or props that are rated to be appropriate only for a more mature audience (all custom created content by default have to be rated mature, to prevent system abuse). On first run this lock will of course be OFF, and you'll have the option to set-up a password and set it to ON.
We're telling you about this now because we would like you to chime in on the parental lock feature ahead of time. Do you welcome it or do you think it is unnecessary? Some of the Halloween props are a bit on the scary side (such as... a bloody knife) so we thought an age filter would be good to protect the young ones from stumbling upon content meant only for teenagers or up.
If you want to switch to the "nextversion" branch follow these steps:
1. Open Steam Client. Go to Library -> Software
2. Right mouse click on FaceRig -> Properties
3. Go to BETAS tab, click in the drop down, select the beta you would like to test ("nextversion" in this case).
4. Close window
To use voice effects on Skype use this tutorial.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=311589681
Regarding the above tutorial: we've talked with the creators of the Virtual Cable driver (VB-Audio) today via e-mail and they were nice enough to let us redistribute their awesome virtual cable driver with FaceRig as a redistributable package. From next week on we will see about installing it automatically when FaceRig is deployed, so there are less headaches for you :).
That's about it for this update.
We wish you an awesome weekend,
The FaceRig Team :)