We specialize in crafting believable digital characters with convincing emotions.
Our services bring the experience of highly skilled character experts with long track records of crafting believable characters, pushing character production frontiers, and contributing to the computer graphics industry.
Refining the intersection of artistry and technology.
Character Creation
Combining established team expertise with proprietary technologies, we offer full-stack character creation services that deliver convincing and compelling characters.
- Our character creation pipeline has been built around 3D and 4D data powered by SUNFLOWER, a technology framework we developed that enables the assembly of character-focused scanning facilities.
- We have custom scanning facilities deployed in Novi Sad (Serbia), Manchester (UK), and Los Angeles (USA) to support your production.
- Internal scan data processing pipeline enable us to extract subtle nuances across facial deformations in geometry, together with skin property alterations relevant for rendering.
- With extensive modeling and rigging expertise, our team delivers performant and multi-resolution assets that will work seamlessly across interactive and linear experiences.
Character Animation
When you choose 3Lateral, you have access to research-driven facial tracking and solving solutions that are at the frontier of MetaHuman Animator research.
- Our animation technology has been developed to facilitate the high-density tracking of every nuance of your actor’s performance.
- We support an audio pipeline that transforms voice recordings into emotionally rich facial animation, deliverable at a massive scale.
- In addition to facial animation, our services expand to full-body animation and scene finishing for well-integrated and holistic character animation delivery.
- Our animation team can support your internal team, using your pipeline tools and management processes to ensure production efficiency.
Service Pipeline
Scanning 3D/4D
We offer scanning services at 3Lateral facilities in Novi Sad, Manchester, and Los Angeles. Our locations are equipped with 3Lateral’s proprietary data capture technology framework, the SUNFLOWER framework.Modeling
Our 3D modeling pipeline delivers game-ready and multi-resolution assets from high-precision scan data. We apply our comprehensive FACS expertise to create robust facial rigs capable of matching targeted gesticulation.Texturing
We provide textures derived from scans. These are compliant with physically based rendering (PBR) pipelines, and they convey both static and dynamic facial textures, such as wrinkle and blood flow maps. You’ll receive additional data maps for full shader development.Rigging
With our facial rigging technology, you wll receive a runtime rig built on MetaHuman facial asset standards. We can further upgrade the facial rig fidelity with 4D data-derived deformations driven by a machine learning add-on to our Rig Logic.Animation
We offer facial tracking and solving to deliver precise animation derived from mocap data. We also support an audio pipeline that transforms voice recordings into emotionally rich facial animation.Why partner with 3Lateral
We handle every step of the character creation and animation process. Create digital characters based on scans of real people, or work with us to develop fictional characters all the way through to final assets. Our expertise and proprietary pipeline spans 3D and 4D scanning, character modeling, texturing, rigging, shader development, mocap, and animation.
Our pipeline underpins Epic Games’ MetaHuman character production standards. The digital character assets you receive from us will adhere to MetaHuman asset formats, supporting efficient and consistent content creation pipelines across large-scale productions. Your animated characters will be fully compatible with Unreal Engine or any other applicable engine.
R&D is at the heart of 3Lateral. We pioneer innovative digital character technologies and provide you with early access to the latest character production advancements. This ensures you’re among the first to benefit from character fidelity levels that seek to surpass what is currently perceived as the gold standard in the AAA industry. Our services push the frontiers of digital character fidelity and seek to exceed the expectations of even the most ambitious productions.
When you choose us, you’re partnering with a team that has successfully delivered more than 25 AAA video games globally. These span diverse genres and include some of the most demanding types of projects, such as large-scale open world games. We’re also well known for our contribution across projects that have been awarded for their character and narrative-centric achievements.
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Want to find out how we can help support your projects? Contact our solutions team.
