CIG Unveils FOIP Technology During Gamescom!

Star Citizen FOIP Technology

One of the real surprises to be revealed at this year’s Gamescom was CIG’s new face tracking technology they call FOIP (Face Over Internet Protocol).

This face tracking technology represents a joint effort between CIG and Faceware Technologies.

FOIP will allow any current camera to track your facial movements and expressions. Star Citizen will then translate these movements into in-game character actions.

Using a traditional camera will give you 30 FPS tracking. It may get you out of sync with your character at 30 FPS but Faceware is releasing a Star Citizen branded camera that will track your facial expressions at 60 FPS which should guarantee that you’ll stay synced up in-game.

The first way this will translate into in-game play is similar to using a TrackIr. As you move your head up and down and side to side, this will move your character’s head allowing you to look around the game world and at instruments within your ship. By doing this naively in-game CIG, has made it so you need buy one less peripheral to fully experience the beautiful universe they’re creating.

The second way FOIP will work is be mimicking your facial expressions on your character. If you frown, then your character will frown, if you smile then your character will smile. Overall it is a pretty interesting technology that should make for a much more immersive game.

Finally, the technology also allows for 3D positional audio. This means that as players get closer of farther from one another, their voices will get louder of softer. It also adds some great effectly like radio interference when you’re wearing a helmet.

You can look at the full CIG press release here.

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