Release Notes

• Silent installation enabled

• Character control files containing a dot in their base name will now display correctly in SGX Director

• Selected intervals are preserved when switching between event tabs

• Fix for SGX Director failing silently when saving a read-only file

• Fix for failure to navigate events with up/down keys when the current event is in a popped-out window

• State of Resources panel and last Batch tab are now saved between sessions.

• New setting “Auto-fit Segments”. When you select a segment in SGX Director, this setting determines whether the viewport is automatically adjusted to show the entire segment.

• Fix for CTRL+left mouse, which sets the play position, also changing the current selection.

• Fix for strange behavior of text cursor when using arrow keys to navigate a transcript.

• Fixed crash in breath analysis for very short files

• Fixed inability to edit transcripts in SGX Director using Input Method Editors

• Fix for SGX Producer not returning the right exit code for invalid arguments

• Added option to place license file elsewhere from standard install location, using SG_LIC environment variable.

• Fix for intermittent crash when changing display options

• Fix for crash in breath processing with certain audio

See also What’s new in SGX 4.3.

• Breath

  • Automatic breath animation based on audio

  • New behavior modifiers: Breath Magnitude and Breath Speed

  • New metadata: Breaths

• Laughter

  • New Laugh auto-mode, generating laughter animation

• Improved lip sync

  • General improvements in lip sync alignment quality across all languages

• Improved language modules

  • Each module now consists of just a single file

  • Languages load significantly faster, which cuts down on processing time.

  • Users can download language modules directly from the Downloads site, rather than via delivery.

  • In SGX Director, the language dropdown will only display the user’s licensed languages.

• Improved determination of expression intensity from audio

• Improvements in pre-roll and post-roll

  • The effects of pre/post-roll are now consistent; analyses are not altered by their use.

• SGX Director menu

  • New menu item Edit > Delete Last Sequence which deletes the last sequence in the current event

  • Keyboard shortcuts for Edit > Delete Last Sequence (Ctrl + D) and Edit > Clear Metadata (Ctrl + Shift + D)

• Improved logging

• Speech Speed and Nonverbal Speed modifiers now have intended effect when set to 0

• SGX Producer now checks that there are events to process before starting processing

• Bug fixes:

  • Audio sync during playback in SGX Studio

  • Progress bar continuing after pipeline has failed

  • Crash in SGX Director caused by editing languages directory path

  • Zoom reset errors

  • Behavior modes not being triggered in Universal language mode

  • Rare failure to display some metadata sequences

  • Changes to settings not immediately taking effect

  • Stability improvements

  • Empty event inspector after re-opening

  • Prosody errors in acoustic lip sync

• Fix for rare error during analysis of synthetic audio in acoustic pipeline

• Audio sync issue in SGX Director fixed

• Fix for behavior nodes not being triggered in Universal language mode.

• Processing support for untrained characters.

• Reduced SGX Director redraws while idle.

• Fix for failure to process extremely short audio files (<160 ms).

• Fix for failure to output batch report files.

• Reduction of SGX Director footprint while idle.

• SGX Metadata Export is now available as an add-on feature. Users can extract metadata from Speech Graphics event files to mine for various uses. Metadata sequences include:

  • Word alignment - may be used for generating accurately timed subtitles.

  • Phone alignment - may be used for processes such as de-essing.

  • Behavior mode - may be used to influence other events with the character or the surroundings that should be synchronized with the character’s mood.

  • Expressions may be used to synchonize other animations of the character with the facial changes

  • There is new prosodic metadata – Intensity, Pitch, Stress, and Phrases - that can be used to inform other analyses and drive automations.

• Improvements in effort detection

• Processing speed improvements

• Bug fixes, including:

  • Corrected mis-interpretation of fixed pre/post roll with 0 value

  • Fixes for processing events with non-latin filenames

• Eliminated environment variable for license file, which the installer now copies into the installation folder.

• ‘Restore Default Settings’ button has been added in Settings

• 'Recently Opened' list in Director is maintained between sessions

• Event zoom is preserved while switching between events

• Administrator account no longer required for installation (see new Installation Instructions)

• Stereo .mp3 files are now flagged rather than automatically converted to mono, so as to be treated the same way as .wav files

• Bug fixes in SGX Director:

  • Fix for crashing when trying to stop the event processing

  • Fix for license failure after machine wakes up from sleep

  • Character control files that no longer exist are no longer shown in the Character resources list at launch

  • Muting audio no longer resets play position

  • Fix for boundaries not being movable after undocking an event.

  • Fixed compatibility issue with SGX Studio UE

  • Fix for incorrect zoom after loading an audio file directly

  • Fixes for various issues with undocking and re-docking event tabs

  • Fix for crash when closing application while there are undocked events.

  • Fixed documentation link

• Release out of beta

• Bug fixes

  • Inability to re-show Resources tab after closing it

  • Waveform was not rendering for audio loaded directly from an audio file

  • Incorrect documentation link

• Removed unused Show Log menu item

• Export Sequence function is enabled for standard users

• UX improvements:

  • Run Batch button disabled if license lacks access to SGX Producer

  • Improved point hovering sensitivity in event editor

  • Improved visual quality of curves in event editor

  • Improved organization of batch tab

• Bug fixes:

  • SGX Director license failure after machine wakes up from sleep

  • Crash while clearing metadata if a sequence is selected

  • Loss of sequence selection when switching between event tabs

• New and improved effort detection model

• Batch processing changes

  • Batch processing with new input now does not re-process existing events in the target folder. There are now two separate modes: process new events vs processing existing events.

  • List input and batch transcript lists have been merged. When using the "File" input option, you can now provide a single input spreadsheet containing comma-separated audio paths and transcripts in .csv format. There is no longer a separate Batch Transcripts field.

• Disabled widget for 'Expression Frequency' in SGX Director, since it is not yet implemented.

• Fix for dead lock while reloading resources 

• Fix for rare 'nan' output animation values when processing in Universal mode

• There is a new menu item called Export Sequence which allows you to save the selected sequence (e.g. metadata) as a file.

• There is a new menu item Clear Metadata, which clears all metadata in the event.

• Misc UX improvements and fixes

• Fixed bug where the clear keyframes functionality unintentionally deletes user's audio file

• Silent installation enabled

• Misc UX improvements

• Fix for failure to import audio with event if the audio filename contains non-Latin characters.

• Fixed memory leak in batch processing

• Fixed broken shift+click to expand hierarchy in animation targets list

• Live link to SGX Director is now optional. It can be turned off in the Tools menu.

• Fix for Maya crash when control file is loaded into a scene with swapped names between geometric and blendshape node

• Fixed issue with adding complex attributes as animation targets

• Fixed error with -n flag

• Fix for adding muscle without choosing anatomical region causing muscles in Modes tab to disappear

• Fix for reference pose not being updated during baking process

• Empty expression names are no longer accepted

• Added option to place license file elsewhere from standard install location, using SG_LIC environment variable.

• Fix for error when adding blendshape animation nodes

• Fix for failure to bind to namespaces in some cases.

• Support for Maya 2025

• Fix for modes tab not updating after adding a muscle.

• Fix for muscles baking error after realoading file with new muscle.

• Fix for batch export breaking joint rigs.

• Bug fixes:

  • Removing any animation targets resulted in all muscles being empty

  • Moving a muscle slider automatically selected that muscle

  • When loading character control file, the character was being set to the neutral pose automatically

See also What’s new in SGX 4.3.

• Dual animation levels

  • A single Character Control File can now have two animation levels in the same file: control and baked. This avoids the creation of a second file when retargetting to the baked level.

• Muscle activation display

  • During playback of an event in SGX Director, you can now view the state of the muscles in an instance of SGX Studio bound to the event. The muscle sliders are updated whenever playback pauses or the play position is scrubbed.

• New automation commands for SGX Studio Maya: sgx_import_pose, and sgx_add_expression.

• User interface layout improvements.

• Fixed failure to loop animation when looping is enabled in SGX Director.

• Fix for error in first baked muscle when there is a difference between the reference pose and neutral pose

• Improved chest_breath muscle properties for new characters.

• Fix for batch export issue when files already exist

• Torso section added to new characters

• Improvements to phonetic models for new characters, especially for Mandarin and Korean

• Compatible with output events from SGX Production Tools 4.2

• Fixes for importing events with non-latin filenames

• Eliminated environment variable for license file, which the installer now copies into the installation folder.

• It is now possible to select compound attributes to be animation targets

• Installation changes:

  • Administrator account no longer required for installation.

  • The module file is no longer automatically installed in Program Files.

  • Installation instructions have changed

• Fixed documentation link

• Rename of “Bind pose” to “Reference pose” in menu

• Bug fix: Neutral pose in Muscles and Modes tab was not working after resetting bind pose.

• Support added for importing events containing audio in mp3 and ogg formats

• Release out of beta

• Fixes certain attribute types being incorrectly interpreted when adding animation nodes

  • String attribute no longer throws warning

  • Vector attribute no longer generates duplicate non-functional animation targets

• Simplification of plugin tabs

• Added support for Maya 2024

• Updated to align with SGX Production Tools 4.0-beta.27

• Bug fixes:

  • Changes to default behavior mode not being saved

  • Inability to select animation target when a channel of that name already exists within another animation target

  • Loss of scale effects in muscles after retargetting

  • Hitting Neutral Pose button causing Muscles panel to scroll to top

• Support for UE 5.5

• Limitations

  • There is a bug in UE 5.5 which leads to a crash when opening a blueprint within SGX Studio. A bug report has been filed with Epic.

  • Until that is fixed, in UE 5.5 you can only load skeletal meshes into this version of SGX Studio, not blueprints.

  • Imported animations can still be previewed within the default UE animation editor, by adding the extra meshes from the blueprint as additional meshes.

• Added command SGXAddExpression to command-line interface.

• Defer license checkout until character loading.

• Skip Invalid Meshes when loading Blueprints

• Handle Non-Latin Characters in Directory Import

• Enable CLI within the editor

• Fix for failure to import events if the filename contains non-Latin characters

• Fixed cash when opening plugin from context menu with missing character file.

• Fixed issue where imported animation does not respect the skeleton reference pose

• Fix for animation errors when using custom attributes on joints

• Replaced MasterAnimBP for compatibility with UE5.3

• Fixed crash when failing to load events during import

• Empty expression names are no longer accepted

• Fixed problem driving Blendshapes in Character Viewer

• Removed blank muscles from Modes tab

See also What’s new in SGX 4.3.

• Compatible with dual-level Character Control Files

• UI layout improvements

• The 'Save As' menu option is now enabled when there are no unsaved changes

• Support for UE 5.4

• Fixed problem with looping animation when looping is enabled in SGX Director

• Added command SGXAddExpression to command-line interface.

• Defer license checkout until character loading.

• Skip Invalid Meshes when loading Blueprints

• Handle Non-Latin Characters in Directory Import

• Enable CLI within the editor

• Fix for failure to import events if the filename contains non-Latin characters

• Fixed cash when opening plugin from context menu with missing character file.

• Fixed issue where imported animation does not respect the skeleton reference pose

• Fix for animation errors when using custom attributes on joints

• Feature parity with corresponding release for UE5.4, including recent fixes (for users who do not yet want to update to UE5.4)

• Ability to load MetaHuman Character Control Files baked from Maya without renaming joints

• Behavior modes are now renameable in the plugin

• Compatible with output events from SGX Production Tools 4.2

• Fixes for importing events with non-latin filenames

• Animation sequences generated during the import events process are now automatically added to source control, if it is enabled.

• The plugin no longer uses the SG_LIC environment variable to find the SGX license. Instead, there is a new 'License File Path' setting which can be found in the UE editor under Project Settings > Plugins > SGX Studio.

• Fixed issue with using a license path that contains non-latin characters.

• For UE 5.3 only.

• Behavior modes editor added to the plugin

• Updated to be compatible with non-unity build configurations

• Fixed documentation link

• Additional validity checks for loaded character control files

• Character selection dialog no longer takes complete focus from Unreal Editor

• Updated to UE 5.3. This version is no longer compatible with UE 5.2 or 5.1.

• Unimplemented menu items are now disabled.

• Added compatibility with non-unity build configurations

• Added handling for failed SGX initialization - plugin will now be disabled upon failure and a dialog pop-up will show the reason

• Character control files are now selected as part of the Open SGX Studio dialog

• Last used character asset and character control file path selection are now persistent between sessions

• Improved logging

• Added a preview scene settings tab for adjusting the environment and lighting of the SGX Studio preview scene.

• Fix for the "Additive" flag in the python command SGXImportEvents

• Moving from alpha to beta

• Scripting/automation

  • Python commands SGXLoadControlFile, SGXLoadSkeletalMesh, SGXImportEvents

  • Support for Unreal Engine headless mode. This allows users to import events as animation sequences via python scripts, without having to open the Unreal editor.

• Bug fixes:

  • Animation sequences not displaying correctly in level sequencer timeline while SGX Studio was open

  • Crash on closing SGX Studio window after loading an animation sequence into the level sequencer

• Version for UE5.1 also available

• Improved Mandarin pronunciation

• New consolidated file format (compatible with SGX 4.3)

• New consolidated file format (compatible with SGX 4.3)

• Added support for Latin characters in transcripts

• Better modeling of Mandarin pronunciation

• Bug fix

• Better modeling of Japanese pronunciation

• Bug fix

• Better modeling of American English pronunciation and improved handling of pronunciation variants

• Improved alignment accuracy

• More robust transcript processing pipeline

• Improved handling of punctuation and special characters (tuned to each language)

• More accurate pronunciations