[Official] Cinematic Companion Apps and Android

One of the most common questions we get with regard to Unity Face Capture and Unity Virtual Camera is “why are these on iOS but not Android?” It’s a fair question which we’ll attempt to answer here.

Why is Face Capture not supported on Android?
It’s not a matter of Android vs iOS, but rather that our current solution relies on functionality only available on certain iOS devices, namely ARKit: the specialized hardware and software combination used to performatively track the facial landmarks for driving blend shapes. When similar technology is available on Android devices with some degree of standardization, we’ll be happy to look at releasing an Android version.

Why is the Unity Virtual Camera not supported on Android?
Fragmentation in the Android ecosystem in terms of hardware, OS versions, performance, and special capabilities (e.g. only some devices support ARCore) means that it will require much more time and development resources to provide a stable and reliable solution for Android users, and only some devices would be supported. This is particularly a challenge for low-latency video streaming.

Supporting as many platforms as possible is very important to us, and in both cases, we are constantly evaluating solutions that will allow us to reliably support Android users.