Digitizing the Actor

Avid previews new facial animation technology meant to provide believable acting to CG.

Avid is previewing their new Softimage Face Robot at SIGGRAPH.  The new facial animation technology is meant to allow 3-D artist to achieve the same realistic facial responses found in real life for high-end film, post, and game projects.

The Face Robot is built on computer modeling of the soft tissues in a human face.  On display are CG characters built to show the precision over facial details such as wrinkles, frowns, flaring nostrils, and bulging neck muscles.

The Face Robot supports both keyframe animation and motion capture, and examples may be downloaded from the Softimage website for those who cannot attend the convention.