3-D Facial Animation So Real With Image Matrics & AlterEgo

This amazing combination of technology and graphical artistry makes for some of the most realistic and precise 3D animated facial expressions I’ve ever seen. 3-D computer animation has become so advanced that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Just to show you what I mean, meet Emily & AlterEgo faces:

Emily From Image Matrics



Emily - the woman in the above animation - is an animation believe it or not! Emily was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated. She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.

Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films started with a video of an employee talking. They then broke down down the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a 'control system'.

The team at Image Metrics - which produced the animation for the Grand Theft Auto computer game - then recreated the gestures, movement by movement, in a model. The aim was to overcome the traditional difficulties of animating a human face, for instance that the skin looks too shiny, or that the movements are too symmetrical.


Faces From AlterEgo



Pendulum Studios’, AlterEgo division combines facial expression software, precision motion capture, and good old-fashioned artistry to reproduce the most minute facial movements you’ve ever seen on a digital actor. Every wrinkle, crinkle and twitch is reproduced with startling accuracy.

The guys over at AlterEgo have developed proprietary “facial performance software”, which combined with special mo-cap hardware, can produce unbelievably real digital faces in record time. Their work has been featured in motion pictures, commercials, animation and video games including Dark Sector and the forthcoming Silent Hill 5.

Maybe one day we will not need real actors and actresses to make movies. Exactly like the movie S1m0ne had predicted.

Read Also:
Image Matrics (Official Site)
AlterEgo (Official Site)
Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games (Times Online)
Image metrics emily cg facial animation blows my mind (Technobob)
AlterEgo 3d facial animations are really, really, real (Technobob)