Image Metrics May Revolutionize Facial Animation

iStorm writes, "I've been interested in computer animation for a long time and have recently started cracking down on my studies in an effort to eventually move myself from hobbyist to professional... then I find this article about Image Metrics, which can map an actor's emoting onto a generated face or onto the image of another actor, living or dead. How does a seasoned animator view this sort of push ahead in technology? If so much of the creative process is made so easy, where's the need for traditional animators spending exponentially larger amounts of time to create work of equal or lesser quality? How did animators view motion capture when it first appeared? Will there still be room for creativity if this tech comes to fruition?" The article doesn't say what kind of time or processing power Image Metrics's "high-fidelity, performance-driven facial animation" requires.

Comments

There is always art in animation

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that this technique will knock animators or traditional animation out of business. Animation is art. Did the video camera kill painting? Did the internet kill reading?

Animation from an animator gives it style, and feeling just as much as an actor does. Just watch any old Disney cartoon if you want to see the flow of such animation.

This seasoned animator's view

[tinrobot]

I've been doing 3D character animation for well over a decade, and I've also been exposed to automated facial animation systems including mocap (in many of it's various forms) over the years. I actually think mocap is not bad for certain applications, particularly whole body stuff like athletics. If you really want that golf swing to look like Tiger Woods in his video game, then mocapping him is a very valid option.

What it's not good at, however, is animating the face. People have been trained since birth to observe human faces and we're experts. It makes us very aware of anything that's unnatural. Only a human who innately understands the subtleties of human emotions can truly finesse facial animation so it looks pleasing to the human eye. An animator is just that type of person. We study facial expression, musculature and all sorts of things, then combine it with acting skills and artistic knowledge to make a result that's looks pleasing to the eye (or not.. depending on budgets and deadlines - and I suspect this technology will filter down to the low end productions that don't care as much about the final results)