What's new in SGX 4.6?
SGX 4.6 is available now
This release introduces a brand-new product in the SGX suite, a fully revamped character setup interface, out-of-the-box support for the latest MetaHumans, a new Japanese language module, and a host of other improvements aimed at giving studios more control and efficiency throughout the pipeline.
SGX Runtime
SGX Runtime is a new product in the SGX suite. It provides compression, storage and synchronized playback of SGX animation data inside the game engine.
Built on the well-established FaceFX Runtime technology, it opens up a new route to deploying high-quality SGX animation.
Whether for in-game dialogue or cutscenes, SGX Runtime brings high quality at massive scale, for tight memory and CPU budgets.
SGX Runtime includes:
SGX Compiler
• Converts SGX keyframe animation into optimized binary
• Massive storage savings for high-volume dialogue - up to 99% reduction
• Specialized procedural compression, with no dilution of quality
• Thread-safe performance, built to scale across cores
• Runs from the command line as part of your content pipeline, or can be embedded directly into your own tools via the C API
SGX Runtime
• Deploys compiled animation to the game via an easy C API
• From disk to cache with no translation layer
• Playback from contiguous memory for high throughput and efficient prefetching
• Automatically manages synchronized audio and animation output
• Platform support for Windows, macOS, Linux, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, iOS, Android
Unreal Plugin
• Seamless integration for cinematic-quality animation inside Unreal Engine
• C++ and Blueprint support
• Sequencer integration for precise timing and control
• Automatic audio sync with Unreal's sound system and Wwise
• MetaHuman compatible
SGX Runtime is available as an add-on to your SGX license. Get in touch for more info.
New character setup UI
SGX Studio has been fully revamped, with a new, more user-friendly interface for character setup, spanning both Maya and Unreal.
New, more user-friendly SGX Studio interface for character setup
• A new pose-setting experience: the hard-to-interpret muscle status color-coding and complex toolbar are gone, replaced by a separate button for every pose that needs to be set, giving a clear picture of the work remaining
• The Muscles panel in Maya now includes base poses, for complete end-to-end control of muscle setup
• Better use of space, with smaller and fewer buttons, removal of unnecessary icons, and increased reliance on context menus
• Muscles can now be created without a pose, with the pose defined later
• Negative poses can now be set without the positive pose being set first
• A warning is now provided when loading a control file that drives connected or driven attributes in Maya
• Maya support extended to 2027, Unreal Engine support extended to 5.8
• Various other UX improvements and fixes
Out-of-the-box MetaHuman support
SGX Studio for UE fully supports the latest Metahumans
SGX Studio for Unreal Engine now fully supports the latest MetaHumans created in the in-engine plugin (UE 5.6+).
SGX Studio treats the body as the leader pose, mirroring the setup used by the MetaHuman blueprints, so that both the face and body are fully controlled live in SGX Studio, just as with previous versions of MetaHumans.
In addition, there is now a Universal MetaHuman character control file, based on the Ada preset character, which can serve as the basis for all MetaHuman character setups.
The muscle poses established in this file generalize well across MetaHumans by leveraging the generality of the underlying MetaHuman control rig, so new characters should need little or no editing to get started - the focus instead can be on editing behavior modes to personalize the character.
The Universal MetaHuman control file is available on the Speech Graphics download site.
Lip seal
Lips automatically seal during longer periods of jaw rest
New characters created or updated with SGX Studio Maya 4.6 will have an additional base pose called lip_seal__, driven by a combination of muscles (jaw opening and lip seal). This pose draws the upper and lower lips together to seal the gap between them, and is automatically activated by SGX when appropriate - specifically when the jaw is hanging slightly open due to gravity, as long as the character is not speaking or mouth breathing.
Technically, lip seal simulates the effect of the negative intraoral air pressure differential that holds the lips together as the jaw opens slightly.
If you'd like lip seal added to your existing characters, contact the SGX customer service team.
Japanese 3.0
In support of our mission to provide the best multi-lingual animation, we continually update our language modules. Our most recent effort has produced Japanese 3.0, a significant advance in Japanese animation.
• Improved pronunciation model for more phonetically accurate output
• New text analysis model providing greatly improved word segmentation accuracy, leading to fewer errors
• Support for full-width Latin letters
• Compatible with older versions of SGX, though for maximum benefit, use with SGX Production Tools 4.6 or later
Scoped logs
Parse ready logs for error tracking and metrics
SGX Producer now offers an option for scoped logging.
When enabled, this injects opening and closing tags into the batch processing log output around processing stages and iterations.
Scopes are nested, and all log messages are contained within scopes - a format that enables automated log parsing scripts to isolate specific processing stages, trace errors back to distinct source assets, and gather performance metrics.
If you'd like to know how SGX can elevate your next project with high-quality, emotionally rich facial animation powered by audio alone, please get in touch.
