Holotech Studios Creates The Next Generation Of Interactive Avatar Technology

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Below is our recent interview with Allyson Benas, COO & Head of Product at Holotech Studios:

Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?

A: Holotech Studios is an American and Romanian art and development company that aims to create unique and memorable experiences on desktop and mobile using animation and performance motion capture technology. We are best known for our software that enables anyone to stream as an expressive 3D or 2D avatar. We are proud to be a little bit of the magic behind beloved entertainers including TheOneManny, The CreepyHorseMan, and It’sPuffPuff.

Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?

A: There are a lot of great features in our November 2021 release. The most notable features are:

  • Twitch Integration: This new feature gives Animaze a whole new level of interactivity and entertainment to avatar streaming! This new feature allows streamers to automatically trigger avatar animations, voice effects, emotes and more based on audience interactions such as subs, follows, keywords in chat, and raids.
  • Use PNGs as emotes: Import whatever png files you want to use as emotes in your streams and videos!
  • Ultraleap Gemini integration: Animaze now supports the fifth generation of the Ultraleap Gemini hand-tracking. This tracker matches the position of your virtual hands to your real ones more closely than ever before.

Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?

A: Animaze is software that lets people stream and create videos as avatars using readily available equipment such as webcameras and iPhones.

Animaze is:

  • Free to use
  • Runs on a proprietary avatar rendering and embodiment engine
  • Compatible with web cameras and iPhones
  • Equipped with a large library of highly customizable avatars, including an in-app character creator
  • Compatible with Live2D, VRM, and Ready Player Me Avatars imports
  • An open standard authoring tool for artists, together with free documentation and complex avatar source projects.

Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?

A: We have lots of exciting things coming out! Some of the most exciting features are:

  • Video creation tools – Improvements to the existing elements and more bells and whistles, including a feature that enables lower-powered machines to produce high-quality video and tools to reduce the number of takes to get things just right.
  • Embodiment improvements – We are continually refining the experience and assessing new trackers and exposing more controls to fine-tune the tracking.
  • Streaming tools – We will add on to some of our most streamer-centric features, including the Twitch integration and emotes
  • Mocap Suit Support
  • iPhone bridge and Perfect Sync improvements – More ways to use the iPhone bridge to animate your avatars

Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?

A: Hhhmmm… there are a lot. If I had to pick one thing, it’s that people can get to know us, ask us questions and meet members of our community on our Discord server.

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