[pandorabots-general] FW: New animation tech for your Avatar development

[Stanley E. Honour]

            ACCURATE ANTIMATED EMOTIONS

Fez Animation system is a software program that helps animators create
accurate facial expressions for animated characters.  

Animators manipulate each facial muscle of each character to ensure that
the correct muscles are used to generate an expression.

 

With Face Don, a new module within the Fez animation system, animators
can quickly block in a performance by pulling preset facial expressions
from a library onto the character and using all or part of those
expressions. "You can blend expressions," Harrington says. "You can cut
and paste, and use the mouth from one expression and the eyes from
another." To demonstrate the tool, Harrington quickly creates an
expression for Thimbletack that he calls "evil laughter" by combining a
laughing mouth with angry eyes. "Animators can have a face blocked in
within an hour or two using this tool," he notes.


Once the animators have blocked in the face, they can use a second Fez
module, called Face Select, to refine the expressions. "The concept is
that you break down the controls into the muscles of the face,"
Harrington says. Because selecting precise controls for particular
muscles on a CG model can be difficult and tedious, the R&D team created
an interface based on a human face. "Say you want Thimbletack to smile,"
Harrington says. "You select the muscle in the human face that creates
the smile, in this case, the zygomatic major, and when you do, it pulls
up all the controls you need to edit that part of Thimbletack's face."


Harrington points out that because most animators and artists have
studied anatomy, the interface gives them intuitive control. "They can
jump in and quickly learn how to use the tool," he says. As a result, he
expects that both Fez modules-Face Don and Face Select-soon will roll
onto other films.

(

 

Issue Date: Volume: 31 Issue: 2 (Feb. 2008) 

                MORE REALISTIC MOTION

In traditional motion capture, an actor's face is studded with 100 white
markers; a computer tracks the markers' movements and interpolates what
the actor's face is doing.

To get more realistic facial movements, the Mova Contour technique
catches one million points by using an array of cameras and
phosphorescent makeup on an actor's face.

 

Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology Inc., introduced its Face
Robot Version 1.5 during SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston. An update to the
industry's first software application dedicated to the creation of
lifelike facial animation, Version 1.5 provides a game export solution
that enables artists to deliver high-quality, in-game acting with
detailed facial nuances. Face Robot 1.5 features significant performance
improvements and support for the new Mova Contour Reality Capture system
and all major game platforms

The Face Robot v.1.5 software application has been modified to speed
animation playback, while also maintaining the highest-quality
deformations. Since the majority of animation tuning occurs around the
mouth, particular attention has been taken to optimize the proxy mouth
playback mode. Moreover, Face Robot uses a pipeline that allows the
upcoming Mova Contour Reality Capture system to export data directly
into the Face Robot environment.

Face Robot Version 1.5 software is expected to be available in September
2006 for purchase in various configurations. Face Robot Designer will be
available for $94,995, and Designer is a complete environment to
prepare, solve, and animate faces. Designer includes the tools to define
wrinkles and puffing, place tendons, and fine-tune the mouth.  It also
includes the functionality of a seat of Animator. 

Face Robot Animator will be available for $14,995. Animator, a hybrid
environment for both keyframe animation and motion capture, animates
faces prepared using Designer. It uses a retargeting algorithm that
transfers animation and motion capture across faces and offers tuning
controls.
http://www.softimage.com.  ( I know this is an old refrence, but it
gives a good description.  SIGGRAPH2008 starts Aug 11th, in Los Angeles
CA.)



 

                SKIN WITH A HEALTHY GLOW

To make virtual skin glow and animated hair shine, computer scientist
Steve Marschner ... developed a mathematical model for translucency.

To Henrik Wann Jensen, Stephen R. Marschner and Pat Hanrahan for their
pioneering research in simulating subsurface scattering of light in
translucent materials as presented in their paper "A Practical Model for
Subsurface Light Transport." 

This mathematical model contributed substantially to the development and
implementation of practical techniques for simulating subsurface
scattering of light in translucent materials for computer-generated
images in motion pictures. 

The Scientific and Technical Academy Awards were presented on February
14, 2004, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pasadena. 

Scientific and Technical Awards are given for devices, methods,
formulas, discoveries or inventions of special and outstanding value to
the arts and sciences of motion pictures that also have a proven history
of use in the motion picture industry. 

 

 

 

 

 

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