Image Metrics Releases PortableYou Platform for Customizable 3D Avatar Creation

Groundbreaking Platform Empowers Users to Create Personalized Avatars and Additional Custom Content

Image Metrics, a leading provider of facial animation technology, today announced the availability of PortableYou™, a groundbreaking new platform for developers as well as online and mobile entertainment, social network and communications companies.

PortableYou provides end-users with the ability to instantly generate customizable 3D avatars from facial photos. Users can then add and share avatars seamlessly across enabled third-party applications, including social networks and other connected platforms.

The launch of PortableYou supports Image Metrics’ mission to provide both professionals and consumers with products for end-to-end character creation and animation across all digital media.

“With the growing demand for more immersive customizable online experiences, creators of digital media are seeking ways to provide users with increased creative control over their own identity and content,” said Robert Gehorsam, CEO of Image Metrics. “PortableYou creates a unique platform for developers to meet these growing demands head-on and in a cost-efficient manner, while creating a brand new catalog of virtual goods to offer users.”

PortableYou provides a high level of fidelity with cross-platform, cross-application capabilities and is also highly customizable by application developers. PortableYou provides complete accessibility via simple, platform-agnostic web APIs and includes render and translation services for using avatars across multiple applications and pre-created content such as still images, videos, virtual worlds and video games. No other technology provides completely automated, high quality, customizable 3D heads via an open API.

The PortableYou platform offers a rich feature set to application developers and companies in multiple markets, including promotional/advertising content, video games and virtual worlds, e-cards publishing and personalized photography. Customized avatars created through the PortableYou platform can also be used as a source of premium virtual goods-based revenue.

Through its recent acquisition of Big Stage in February 2011, Image Metrics has integrated its real-time, video-driven facial animation technology with Big Stage’s avatar creation platform to create an enhanced PortableYou platform. The new platform ultimately provides consumers with a richer and more interactive experience within their digital networks.

“User generated content is an ever-evolving trend within the social online space,” said Nick Ramsay, vice president of product management at Image Metrics. “Since Image Metrics acquired Big Stage, our team has continued to develop the PortableYou platform, integrating our award-winning facial animation technology. The enhanced PortableYou platform offers the emerging consumer animation market a novel 3D experience that will lead user content creation into the next generation.”

Key Benefits of PortableYou Include:

• Easy 3D Avatar Creation - PortableYou allows end-users to create instant and fully rigged 3D avatars from photographs that can automatically be outputted in the rig format and topology of the intended environment. End-users can also create one avatar and then use it across any PortableYou-enabled application.
• Extended Avatar Personalization - The PortableYou accessories library allows end-users to further personalize and customize their characters with various accessories, including hair, glasses, hats and other items.
• Unique Rendering Service - This distinctive service manages render jobs and accesses previously created content, allowing avatars to star in such pre-created content as movie clips or still images.
• Cross-Platform Solution - PortableYou web services are accessible from desktop, mobile and server platforms, so a wide range of applications can benefit from its personalized avatar creation capability.
• Efficient Processing - Computationally expensive processes - like avatar creation - are offloaded to backend servers, ultimately enabling mobile and other resource-constrained applications to take full advantage of the technology.
• Client Libraries - Thin client libraries for PortableYou are available in most modern development languages. Developers can also access the platform through standard web services calls to the Web API.

The PortableYou platform is now available directly from Image Metrics and can be provided either on-site or as a hosted solution.