Epic Games’ new app lets devs record real-time face data on Unreal Engine

The iOS application uses Apple’s Augmented Reality-based ARKit and TruDepth camera to help developers. Here is everything you need to know about the tech.

Unreal Engine will be accessible to developers next year and it comes with the latest graphic tools and updates. (Unreal Engine)

Epic Games has released a new application for iOS that allows developers to record facial expressions. Developers can then import the data directly to Unreal Engine. The objective is to help developers use advance technologies for gaming with bare minimum resources. In this case, developers can do so by just using iPhone cameras.

Called the Live Link Face App, developers and end-users can download the application from Apple's App Store. The application will allow developers to record the facial expression data real-time and impose them on Unreal Engine characters.

The application leverages Apple's ARKit and TrueDepth camera to drive a 3D preview mesh as well as record the raw face data. This includes timecode support as well for better synchronisation between multiple devices. For instance, you can choose the system clock on iPhones or use Tentacle Sync to use a master clock. The app also has a video reference for better frame accuracy.

Epic Games' Live Link Face App also allows users to browse and manage the captured videos from the library. Developers can extract data automatically for archival.

That said, Epic Games isn't the first studio to leverage Apple's cutting-edge hardware and software capabilities. The Verge in its report points out that Walking Dead augmented reality game also used similar technology. Already, there are a number of applications that are themed on facial capture. Epic Games, however, can help democratise the real-time face capture technology as it enjoys massive dev base.