Animotive 0.8.4.20 Release Notes

Changelog

New Features

  • Implemented AI-enhanced VR tracking, which offers significant improvements to character motion over VR tracking. AI-enhanced VR tracking has been set as the default Capture System within User Settings

  • Implemented support for Vicon motion capture suits via local streaming from Shōgun software

  • Overhauled the in-scene UI for improved usability, visual clarity and faster workflows:

    • Ability to interact with multiple panels in desktop mode - a significant improvement on the previous versions' 'one-in-one-out' functionality

    • Ability to reorder Monitor panel camera views

    • New timeline notch visuals for more precise scene previewing

    • Ability to select Film Script via the Prompter panel (similar to how Audio Clips are loaded to the Audio Player panel)

    • Renamed Shadow Softness to Shadow Opacity

    • Improved dropdown and panel scroll speed on desktop

    • Implemented hover tooltips for truncated UI texts

    • Modified some default UI values based

    • Implemented that panel grabbing and repositioning via the grip button can be performed anywhere on the panel (previously, it was just via the panel footer)

  • Implemented a new hybrid interaction system that allows UI to be interacted with in VR and in Desktop Mode simultaneously (allowing for Animotive users to collaborate with performers more easily / reducing actor onboarding time)

  • Implemented joystick strafing/locomotion which can be used in embodied or unembodied states. To access this ensure the main menu/laser is toggled on, hold the left trigger and use the left joystick. Additionally, the right trigger can be used to boost speed of the action.

  • Expanded video export options, to include:

    • PNG Image Sequence Export

    • Frame rate selection

    • Bit rate

    • Codec selection

    • More advanced anti-aliasing settings

  • Added a new Monitor entity that can be used to stream and display content within Animotive either via NDI or a web browser URL. Monitors can be made visible or invisible to Cameras to be used for a range of purposes

  • Added support for streaming Animotive Cameras to OBS or other tools via NDI, to support professional live streaming and vision mixing workflows

  • Created a seat management interface for Enterprise users to make the process of assigning and revoking seats quick and easy

  • Add Vive face and eye tracking support

  • Implemented a new Quick Rotate grab mode, which makes it easier to rotate entities in VR at a distance

  • Implemented Rule of Thirds guides that can be toggled on a per-camera basis to improve shot composition

  • User preferences and export settings are now preserved between sessions

  • Implemented an undo/redo system within Asset Library

  • Implemented an animation frame rate selection dropdown for FBX export

  • Implemented third party authentication with Google

  • Updated Animotive's default Set asset

  • Imported a new 'Workshop World' template - perfect for quickly starting previz or mocap projects

Bug Fixes / Improvements

  • Improved the robustness and speed of scene loading

  • Improved VR connection/disconnection functionality - allowing users to initialize VR mode after entering a Scene, as well as improving the reconnection functionality for Meta Link users

  • Fixed an issue with the Directional Light rotation values within Asset Library, Environmental Lighting tab

  • Fixed that VRM character eye bone rotation didn't work

  • Fixed a bug that was causing Characters with duplicated bone names to fail asset import

  • Reworked the internet connectivity check to improve reliability

  • Increased FOV of Desktop Mode player camera

  • Increased the numerical precision of in-scene UI input fields

  • Fixed that the Voice Volume slider wasn't working properly

  • Fixed that the user could enable/disable entities during playback

  • Fixed that toast messages wouldn't display if too many were invoked

  • Upgraded asset importer to now support Characters with unlimited bone weights (previously restricted to 4). Please note this only affects freshly imported Characters.

  • Improved sub mesh selection and outline system within the Materials & Textures module of Asset Library

  • Fixed an issue where clicking the Material preview sphere would cause it to disappear

  • Fixed an issue where Asset names containing whitespace could prevent successful exports

  • Improved the body tracking calibration user flow - user is now prompted on embodying a character to calibrate if there is no calibration data found or there is a mismatch between calibrated and current data

  • Fixed a bug causing difficulty in placing the Spawn Area after a Set had been rescaled

  • Fixed a Character misplacement bug that occurred when multiple bone hierarchies exist

  • Fixed a Character load error in the Scene that occurred when a previously mapped optional humanoid bone was removed from the humanoid mapping

  • Visual improvements to entity nametags, so they should be less intrusive

  • Implemented that entity transform input fields now work in VR via the numpad (previously they were only interactable in Desktop Mode)

  • Fixed bugs with the blendshape preview selection toggles with the Facial Mapping module in Asset Library

  • Improved user messaging for cases where the Embody button is unavailable - now a toast message is displayed to the user

  • Fixed a bug that could cause the rotational gizmos in Asset Library to not display

  • Fixed a dropdown position bug, particularly noticeable on the Audio Clip selection dropdown on the Character control panel

  • Fixed an intermittent issue where a Character's auto eye tracking could get stuck following the selection of an invalid eye target

  • Fixed that switching between shaders in the Materials & Textures module would cause the UI to get reset to default values

  • Added a scrollbar for dialog boxes where text exceeded the panel bounds

  • Fixed a text formatting bug that was causing the XSens port number to be rounded to the nearest thousand

  • Fixed an issue that was causing tooltips to not disappear

  • Fixed that the microphone amplitude feedback bar was low

Known Issues

  • Texture compression artifacting

  • Some inconsistencies with Prop animation + playback

  • Some issues with global position animation on Unity Exports

  • When exporting FBX to Unreal Engine there can be slight discrepancies in global animation scale, particularly noticeable at large distances from the world origin

  • VRM 1.0 Files exported from certain versions of the UniVRM plugin in Blender may not be read correctly at import to Animotive. Importing these files into Unity, then exporting as a VRM from unity will fix this.

  • Using the same Audio Clip Asset on more than one entity in the Scene can lead to playback issues. It is advisable to import duplicate versions of the file as a temporary workaround

  • Smoothness texture map may be inverted on import of GLB/GLTF files

  • Volatile animation when turning character physics on with AI-enhanced VR tracking as the selected capture system

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