So, I'm kind of just "geeking" out right now but I just wanted to show all of you guys this technical trailer for a new video game called L.A. Noire. This game is the first to implement a new software that allows for very accurate facial recognition by scanning actor's performance with 30-something HD cameras. It's just adding something new to a video game's bag of tricks as a storytelling artform.
L.A. Noire Youtube Link
(If you skip to about 1:35 there is a cool side-by-side comparison)
The technology is not really new. What is new is that particular game company using it. Facial recognition hardware/software has been in use for a few years both in movies and by the men in black! A good example (other than Avatar!) is the Golem character in Lord of the Rings. There are many technologies, some more cumbersome than others that allow to do "face tracking", meaning expression tracking, and sending that data directly to the 3D program.
ReplyDeleteBut no technology is any good if you don't know what to do with it. In the example of LA.NOIR, although they have a lot of face expression data is very badly integrated with the motion capture of the body, sort of like bad virtual character acting where the facial "muscles" are moving somewhat correctly but it does not really correspond to the action as a whole.
This has to do with what roboticist Masahiro Mori called the "uncanny valley". This is a theory that the closer a robot (or virtual character) approaches the look and action of humans, the more it provokes a revulsion response from human observers. Sigmund Freud famously elaborated that concept in an 1919 essay titled "The Uncanny" ("Das Unheimliche").
You can read more about this phenomena in this Wikipedia article
Uncanny
The short reason is that we as humans are able to detect whether other "human-like" characters are actually human or not. That is why companies like Pixar, which is one of the best in the world, stays away form "realistic" characters and they are the more successful for that since you can readily identify with them. That is also why japanese animation and characters do not attempt to go for ultra-realism but rather create "vessels" where we can project ourselves. Witness the power of Pokemon!