AlterEgo, a division of Pendulum Studios who brought us Smallville’s x-ray effects, has come up with a new technology that can create the most realistic 3D animation we’ve seen to date. On men at least.

The eponymous software they’ve created is able to read data from sensors placed on actors’ faces. With this data and the help of blend shapes, it is able to recreate their facial expressions on 3D animations.

The result is realistic expressions that can be used for characters in game trailers, real-time gaming cinematics or perhaps even those live, animated tech support girls you see around the interwebs.

My question is, how come the old man looks scarily realistic and the girl, while pretty, looks fake? She seems too polished, even by make-up ad standards. While this is a great breakthrough in facial expression rendering, clearly some work still needs to be done.

Sources
StudioPendulum
Via: DVICE, Techeblog