3D HD CG & Motion Graphics System | XPression

Features

XPression has a rich feature set that continues to grow. Care is taken with all new development to maintain ease-of-use while increasing power and functionality.

2D and 3D Text

Electronic character generation is both an art form and science that has been advanced and refined over several decades. XPression takes full advantage of this development and delivers superb text quality in 2D and 3D in almost any written language. The font choices are limitless.

Materials and Textures

The Material Editor allows textures, images, and reflection maps to be layered and combined in a highly flexible fashion. It is easy to blend multiple textures such as video clips, images or live inputs which can then be applied to any object such as text, quads, 3D primitives and meshes from imported 3D models to achieve complex, sophisticated looks. XPression's powerful Materials Manager supports the import of a variety of industry standard file types such as Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.

3D Models

XPression provides the user with a set of 3D primitives that can be used in building cool 3D designs. XPression excels in its ability to import 3D models from popular design tools like 3D Studio Max. These models are imported intact, with groups, pivots and materials from the original model. XPression allows the user to animate, resize and re-skin all of these elements.

Object Based

Each element in XPression, graphical or not, is an object with certain properties and features. This design makes it easy to efficiently reuse assets like materials and fonts by assigning them to different objects. Objects can be organized in groups. Properties can be animated and each object can be automatically named. The scene's object manager makes keeping track of objects very easy.

Animation Controller

What could be easier than creating animations by dragging and dropping the objects? XPression's keyframed animations are created exactly that way. Create elegant looking animations using one or multiple individually timed animation segments, which we call AnimContollers.

Scene Director

Each scene in a project comes with its own track-based timeline, called the Scene Director. Using the scene director, one can visually schedule, composite and reuse animation, video, audio, effects, materials and clips. The Scene Director makes it a breeze to crossfade any clip in your scene by simply dragging and dropping the clip items onto the desired position in the director's timeline controllers.

Sound Effects & Voice-Overs

Timing is essential when working with sound effects. XPression's Scene Director provides multiple audio tracks and allows frame accurate control over your sound effects and voice-overs. XPression is able to output sound effects embedded with the SDI video stream as well as on discrete AES digital outputs. Creating teasers could not be easier.

Continuous Animations

Continuous animations can be used to move elements or entire groups within a scene without keyframing. Multiple tracks can be combined to create complex motion paths. This easy to use animation technique is additive to the traditional keyframing method and is often used to create more dynamic scenes or to draw attention to certain details in the design.

Virtual Cameras

XPression's virtual perspective and orthogonal cameras provide a powerful yet easy method to view and animate templates in a variety of ways not possible with a static front-view camera. You can set up as many different virtual cameras as your design requires and animate them using XPression's powerful keyframe animations.

Sequencer

Flexibility is an essential part of every live production and the sequencer allows you to add and remove Take Items freely by dragging and dropping them into the sequencer, while continuing the playback of other Take Items. XPression's template based workflow enables you, during airtime, to replace content and modify parameters that have been published. The rest of the template remains locked, ensuring look and brand consistency.

Fast Recall

Traditional character generator operation has not been forgotten. XPression supports the "page number" recall method. Operators can quickly recall sequencer Take Items by entering the Take Item's numeric ID on the keyboard's number keypad. Take Items can be auto-renumbered and grouped according to the show's workflow or script.

Live Inputs & Screen Captures

Using live inputs as part of a design is an everyday task. XPression lets you apply live input sources to any object and animate the result in real-time. Without the use of external scaler equipment you can even output live websites to any 2D or 3D object's surface thanks to window capture functionality.

Chroma Keyer

The integrated real-time vector based chroma keyer completes a very cost-effective set of tools for creating eye-catching virtual studio productions. Using the color-picker, you can simply select the color to be keyed before fine-tuning its parameters. Multiple chroma keyers can be used within a single scene. Thanks to the algorithm used, keying of transparent objects is no problem.

TrueD! Stereoscopic Output

Providing the audience with a 3D experience is a powerful way to stay in the lead. XPression is equipped with all the necessary tools to give your graphics a spectacular 3D look. XPression can provide line-by-line, side-by-side, multi-channel, and anaglyphic based 3D stereoscopic output – in other words TrueD!.

Custom Keyboard

XPression's optional custom keyboard provides dedicated function keys and user-definable keys for lightning fast operation in live production environments. Users can program multiple functions on a single key that execute sequentially for macro capability. In addition, keyboard functions can be assigned to GPI's or RossTalk commands for even greater flexibility.