The Future of Videogame Faces Looks Kinda Like Hellraiser

[John Funk]

The Future of Videogame Faces Looks Kinda Like Hellraiser

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L.A. Noire's faces may be impressive, but they've got nothing on this.

Much hubbub has been made over Team Bondi's superb facial animation in Rockstar crime drama L.A. Noire. It's the sort of thing that actually turns game characters into something resembling real-life people, without the hollow stare that haunts conversations in other games made by companies whose names begin with "B."

Unfortunately for Team Bondi, Kotaku [http://www.janimation.com/#pages/bimbo_bread.html] regarding his company's proprietary new facial rendering tech, and it's damn impressive.

Skip to about 0:35 into the video to see how it looks in real-life - and brother, it looks painful. I'm sure you get used to wearing all those shiny little diodes, but it kind of reminds me of that dude from Hellraiser [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/].

Also, the tooth decay in the finished model is a bit unsettling. The original model had perfectly fine teeth, guys. Can't we leave it at that?

(Via Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5803111/think-la-noire-has-impressive-facial-animations-check-this-out])

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[GiantRaven]

I think 'wow' is really the only comment that can be said here.

Seriously, just...wow.

 

[zombie711]

finaly something that they can use to remake corpse killer.
no Im serious I want a remake of corpse killer and now with tech like this we dont need to hire crappy actors. Still its a bit unsettling.

 

[CosmicCommander]

When I opened this, I thought that the in-game face was the model who leant his face.

God, this is damn impressive.

 

[standokan]

That´s the kind of face you meet in dark alleys, I don´t want to piss myself while playing games

 

[Moontouched-Moogle]

Wow, that's crazy detailed. I wasn't even sure that the first face wasn't a real person until they zoomed out.

 

[vrbtny]

Wait? That's animated? I...ugh...ug...er....wow!

 

[StellarViking]

That is insane. I didn't think it was real until they zoomed out, either, and even when they did I thought it was a green screen sort of thing. I am thoroughly impressed.

 

[Rad Party God]

Holy... Crap... that looks very, very, very impressive. I hope Bethesda uses this tech in Skyrim to avoid the... uhm... Oblivious uncanny faces.

 

[Trogdor1138]

This is the best thing like this I've seen yet, so they're doing something right.

 

[SangRahl]

That looks awesome.

My only minor complaint would be the "You're doomed!" test... The render didn't seem to translate the roll of the lips that take place with the "oom" sound, making a powerful line look like it was uttered from an excessively small mouth. I'm sure it's something that can, and will, be fixed in later iterations, either through mmore robust translation through code, or post-recording tweaks via the techs.

 

[rsvp42]

Hey, I like BioWare... but I don't necessarily admire their conversation animation, so whatever. Not sure if they even use performance capture though; it works better for certain styles, after all. This seems like decent tech, so long as it works in-game and still looks good. Overall, I've seen better motion/performance capture, but this still looks good.

 

[6FootImp]

wow that just blew me away. The animation looks more detailed than the real life actor.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I wonder if animators will be needed if all animation is performed by the diodes on the actor.

Also seems like an odd design choice to be using this tech for a photo realistic human face... wouldn't you just need an actor for that? I'm not saying it's not impressive, but I think it would have been more interesting to show a non human character with the human expression.

*note* I realize this is a tech showing not a practical use example.

 

[icame]

Sucks about it not being in real time, but hopefully one day soon.

 

[Wicky_42]

Preeeety schweet - nice motion-cap work!

 

[Wolfram23]

That is excellent! Can't wait to see this sort of thing in games. I guess LA Noire is a good start though.

 

[Kanaan Brood]

Truly impressive. I can't wait for tech like this to be widely used.

 

[Owlslayer]

We are living in the future people.
Even though everyone doesn't have a jet-pack, still... this is good enough proof!

 

[beema]

This is still in uncanny valley for me. Kind of unsettling...