Live Link Face vs Sound Bakery

Live Link Face captures facial performances and generates animation for MetaHuman characters in Unreal Engine. The iOS app supports real-time and processed animation and can capture raw video and depth data for the MetaHuman plugin. Epic describes the Android app as a beta for real-time MetaHuman facial animation. Animation streams over a network to Unreal Engine through the MetaHuman Live Link plugin; the phone and computer must be connected to a network. App settings include OSC connections for external controllers and devices. Android timecode can use the system clock, an NTP server, or a Tentacle Sync device for multi-device synchronization. Real-time Android animation is limited to certain Qualcomm chipsets, and Snapdragon 8s chipsets are unsupported; Android does not support capture for offline processing. Live Link Hub can download recorded media from Android and iOS devices and trigger recording on a connected phone. The app is free on iOS and Android. The App Store listing requires iOS 16 or later, while Epic’s workflow description specifies an iPhone 12 or later and a Windows 10/11 desktop PC.

Sound Bakery is free, open-source audio middleware for games on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It combines an authoring application with a C/C++ API for game-engine integration. The workflow covers audio asset management, sound selection, packaging, playback, and debugging. Its Sound Chef library wraps miniaudio and emulates FMOD functionality, while the system manages a node graph, sounds, resources, and output to the user’s device. The maker describes built-in multithreading and an aim to let users customize the engine, interface, tools, and behavior as a collaborative alternative to Wwise and FMOD. CLAP is listed among the dependencies, with API access to a CLAP host and plugins. GitHub provides binaries and source; building requires a C++ compiler, CMake 3.28 or higher, and Git. The project uses the MIT License.