Latest News about Animaze!

Hello awesome folks,

We have integrated Inworld AI in Animaze ChatPal as an alternative LLM + voice engine solution.

Inworld AI enables you to fully customize the AI Brain that powers the Animaze avatar, to craft characters with distinct personalities and contextual awareness that stay in-world. Keep in mind that an Inworld AI account and additional fees for Inworld AI services will be needed beyond the Inworld initial free usage allotment.

As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Let us know what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!

Happy Streaming,
The Holotech Team

Introducing the newest sensation in the Animaze world: Malicious Rangar!

Prepare to bug out with this mischievous critter who's ready to turn your virtual world upside down!

Get ready to dance like nobody's watching, laugh like you've never laughed before, and embrace the crazy with Malicious Rangar!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOa34N1_7r8

As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Tell us what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!

Happy Streaming,
The Holotech Team

Hello awesome folks,

We are releasing an update that enables you to add a LOT more ready-made custom animations to your avatar.
You can now directly import any of the thousands of Mixamo animations to use on any mannequin-compatible avatar in Animaze! This should also work with any other animation creation pipeline that can export fbx animations for the Mixamo rig, like Move.ai.
You are now also able to use blendshape face tracking input from any VMC tracker!
Based on your feedback, we've reworked key bindings for Special Actions, Special Poses, and Idle Animations.
Because of the keybind system changes, switching to previous-version branch and back to the main will revert all keybind mappings to default.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BixKeK_AkeE

Editor Changelog

As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Tell us what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!

Happy Streaming,
The Holotech Team

Hello animazing community,

We're excited to bring to you Animaze with an improved webcam face-tracking library from Visage Technologies. What you'll likely notice right away is that it has less jitter and requires less smoothing, allowing you to enable a snappier mo-cap experience from your advanced tracking settings.

We are also applying what we have learned with auto-generating avatar motions and gestures on Chatpal, to enable an improved "no-cam" mode for streamers that want to drive things with just their voice.

• updated the default webcam face tracker Visage SDK, which significantly reduces tracking jitter.
• Animaze ChatPal updates
  
  • fixed issue with the start of talking behavior on cloud voices which activated too early, the behavior should start at the right time now.
  • fixed gestures and emotions being ignored if they are at the very start of the phrase, on very short phrases with single gesture/emotion.
• updated the MToon shader for VRM 1.0, newly imported VRM 1.0 avatars should be shaded correctly now.
• disabled texture resizing when importing user images (for any type of customization); before, textures were clamped to the application render size.
• fixed Ultraleap freezing issue if you use general special actions and interrupt them with the avatar's dedicated idle.
• for VRM and GLB models, on import, we are removing ARKit eyes look-at blendshapes (e.g. EyeLookDownLeft) specifically for the meshes that are skinned by the eyeLeft/eyeRight joints. For VRM and GLB-sourced avatars, the eyes are animated procedurally by rotating the eye joints, applying blendshapes over this would only apply a double transform and make the end result inaccurate and/or distorted.
• added Animaze Webcamless Face & Body Extension (activable from Settings > Advanced Tracking Configuration > Select Trackers) which adds dynamic facial expressions and body movements to your avatar without the need for face or body trackers. Some movements are derived or applied based on the audio tracker. Effectively, we’ve added the Animaze Chatpal procedural behaviors for real-time use with audio tracking.

• updated the MToon shader for VRM 1.0, newly imported VRM 1.0 avatars should be shaded correctly now.

As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Tell us what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!

Happy Streaming,
The Holotech Team

Hello animazing community,

With this update, any simple GLB rigid model on the Internet can be an Animaze prop, loaded directly in the app. We are also releasing a few fixes for issues reported by YOU: Animaze Chatpal tweaks, Direct Prop Imports, Editor updates, and more. Find out about all the fixes in the detailed changelog below:

Desktop Changelog

• Animaze ChatPal updates:
  
  • fixed transitions between explaining animations.
  • added options to specify system message and voice per avatar, granting the ability to create the avatar's AI “personality” through context and voice. See docs for more info.
  • added Echo Mode which enables you to use Animaze Chatpal as a text-to-speech service, no OpenAI API key is needed. Previously this was possible through the -echo command.
  • added a “Stop Speaking” button to interrupt Animaze Chatpal from talking.
  • some ElevenLabs error handling fixing some edge case crashes.
• fixed avatar scaling issue - props did not scale correctly after save/revert flow.
• avatar scaling is now saved/loaded in quickscenes.
• added iPhone Tracker FPS and Latency stats to App Stats.
• fixed hands forced rotation issues with dedicated special actions, special poses, or idle animations for GLB avatars.
• fixed small visual issues with Cascaded Shadow Technique.
• added direct Prop imports (.avatar and .glb files are supported).
• fixed an edge case issue on GLB-sourced avatars that erroneously determined the avatar had no TPose.
• added Visage tracker paths error handling, removing the crash that occurs when Animaze is installed in a path with non-English characters. Friendly reminder, Visage face tracker only works if Animaze is installed in a path with English (or ASCII) characters.
• added a timeout for the Animaze API websocket.

Editor Changelog

• fixed hands forced rotation issues with dedicated special actions, special poses, or idle animations for GLB avatars.
• fixed small visual issues with Cascaded Shadow Technique.

Midori Dark and Evil Clown have come to Animaze!

Check them out in the Avatar tab and let us know once you create your videos or streams using them!

Hello animazing community,

Update Animaze and check out our new reaction background and two new props: Phone prop and a new SF Jetpack!
You can now set quick scenes for camera movement and create elaborate videos.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vpH4ZjqBUU

Also, if you're feeling creative, we've also prepared some tips and tricks about customizing and retexturing your avatars, making them your own with a vast array of props or with a custom background.

As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Tell us what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!

Happy Streaming,
The Holotech Team

Hi animazing community,

What if you could have an all-knowing live-streaming sidekick, sharp-as-a-tack, and cute-as-a-button? What if that sidekick knew endless jokes, fact-checked trivia in real-time, and could even entertain your audience when you step out for a coffee break?

We are thrilled to announce the release of the Animaze ChatPal module, allowing avatars to interface with AI “brains” such as ChatGPT, opening up incredible opportunities for AI digital assistants, streaming sidekicks, and AI-based education. Get ready to engage with avatars like never before! Join us on this exciting journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa_NDUCZAmc

Animaze uses OpenAI for the LLM (ChatGPT) and Microsoft System Voices for the text-to-speech functionality (avatar's voice). A separate integration with Inworld.AI is available upon request for business and enterprise use. We are also exploring premium voice alternatives.

Learn more about Animaze ChatPal tips and usage steps from this guide. Let us know what you'd like to see next - complete our feedback form 

• added Animaze ChatPal a conversational AI with Animaze Avatars.
• added Animaze ChatPal as new Twitch Action (send custom prompt or a Twitch chat line directly to ChatPal).
• tweaked anim switching between special actions and idle animations, the transition should be smoother.
• fixed environment mapping on transparent surfaces.
• fixed look-at-camera issues for VRM and Ready Player Me avatars that occurred when scaling the avatars in-app.
• added mouth open/close amplitude options for Alternate Lipsync Method (from Overrides).
• fixed cascaded shadows rendering issues on furry and skin-simulated (subsurface scattering and translucency) surfaces.
• changed the iPhone Tracker webcam dialog video to a simple animation.
• added a few optimizations in the UI and Animation systems.
• fixed Programmable Tracker UI issue (reopening the Select Trackers drawer would render the tracker disabled, although it was live) and retargeting issue (some face expressions weren’t applied).
• changed Tobii tracker (eyes and head tracker) priority to be higher than all real-time face trackers.
• fixed Ready Player Me avatars inverted look-at-camera behavior.
• added a new Import Avatar button at the beginning of the Avatars Drawer.

• reduced sphere colliders radius lower limit from 0.01 to 0.0001
• removed import report - after import there is still the console log window that properly shows all import info

As always, we love hearing what you think about the new content and Animaze! Tell us what you’d like to see added to Animaze on our Discord server, email us at support[@]animaze[.]us, or message us on Twitter!

Thank you for being a part of our community, and we can't wait to see what you create with Animaze!
The Holotech Team

Hackers, Makers, and Tinkerers, this one is for you!

The Animaze API and Programmable Tracker (https://animaze.tv/programmable-tracker)  are out today.

You can now use Animaze as an avatar visualization layer for your projects, whether they are about tracking/computer vision, or conversational AI agents, by using the Animaze API, Programable Tracker, and/or VMC protocol layer, you can have a kick-ass fully articulated avatar representation on screen in no time!

The Animaze API enables 3rd party apps or hobby developers to control certain functions (e.g. load avatar) or get certain info (e.g. list of ready to use avatars) of/from the Animaze Desktop application to create your own Metaverse experience with virtual avatars. 

The Animaze API supports actions that send a command and receive a response. 

Actions that are available:

• Load Avatar

• Load Scene

• Get Avatars

• Get Scenes

• Get Item Icon

• Get Emotes

• Trigger Emote

• Get Special Actions

• Get Poses

• Trigger Pose

• Get Idle Anims

• Trigger Idle

• Get Quickscenes

• Load Quickscene

• Save Quickscene

• Calibrate Tracker

• Broadcast

• Set Camera Transform

• Get Camera Transform

• Set Camera Fov

• Get Camera Fov

More information on how to set is up here: https://animaze.tv/animaze-api

Let us know what you think on http://animaze.tv/discord ,  http://animaze.tv/twitter, or via email at support[@]animaze.us. 

Your feedback is vital to a small team like ours!

Enjoy!

The Holotech Team

We are releasing a very special build today, with a lot of surprises for all you tinkerers out there:

- added Animaze API that enables 3rd party apps or hobby developers to control certain functions (e.g. load avatar) or get certain info (e.g. list of ready to use avatars) of/from the Animaze Desktop application. See docs here: https://animaze.tv/animaze-api

- added a Programmable Tracker that enables 3rd party apps or hobby developers to directly retarget their tracking data on the Animaze avatar (Animaze 3D, Live2D, VRM, Ready Player Me, GLB). See docs here:https://animaze.tv/programmable-tracker

- adjusted avatar spawn location behavior that fixes undesired spawn positions for scenes prepped for Animaze Rooms.

- fixed Live2D props misplacing when loading Quickscenes.

- added support for eye angle ranges for VRM models (see VRoid Studio Eye Alignment options).

- added Camera Transitions for Quickscenes.

- added Frame Transitions (fade and two dissolve anims) for Quickscenes.

- moved Webcam settings to a separate settings tab.

- VMC Tracker now supports camera transforms, you can start using Animaze as a Virtual Production setup with a hand controlled (by external device) render camera.

- fixed Ultraleap retargeting in Animaze Rooms.

- fixed issue with generic idles which disabled head and body tracking (for all 3D avatars, previously it was fixed for VRM/RPM).

- extended Quickscenes generation to more than 10 slots. You can now create virtually infinite Quickscenes. Quickscenes over the initial 10 slots can be triggered through Stream Deck or Animaze API.

- added 9 more animations to the Mannequin (animations available for all VRM and RPM avatar out of the box): 3 walking cycles and 6 sitting idles.

- updated the Live2D SDK.

Let us know what you think on Discord: http://animaze.tv/discord , Twitter http://animaze.tv/twitter or via email at support@animaze.us. 

Your feedback is vital to a small team like ours!