(Direct link to YouTube video) Activision's research and development team has released this video of an entirely synthetic animated character. It is rendered in real time, which means that a character could look this realistic during gameplay. Or a character could be created with entirely different geometry, such as an orc or a fish-man.
There are a few jarring artifacts, such as the flat black of the inside of the mouth. But the rest of the simulation—including depth of field, subsurface scattering, tiny skin twitches and eye movements, and skin elasticity—gives the simulation a compelling realism, a big step across the uncanny valley.
Looks pretty good. However, game companies are going out of business right and left due to the high cost of developing games with current graphics. Graphics as advanced as what we see in this video are likely prohibitively expensive for now.
ReplyDeleteCool stuff. Here's something similar in subject matter but slightly different and more for the RedDwarf fans out there.
ReplyDeleteIts about a virtual talking interactive head.
http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2013/03/22/holly-a-future-reality/
Look what one guy did single-handedly with maya (not a design studio and without 3d scanning or motion capture or anything like that) did in 1990's. http://www.androidblues.com/interviewmpeg1.mpg The software zbrush is making it easier for artists to create computer graphics with high level of detail so realism in games will continue to advance and besides, games rely more on imaginative realism (hey, I know a book on that topic) than scan capture data and mocap anyway. You heard it here first...
ReplyDeletesorry I forgot to leave credit, the modelling and animation created with Maya was by Steven Stahlberg. His website is androidblues.com
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that the person, when talking, has too many facial features that do random stuff. The eyebrowser for example.
ReplyDeleteIf I would be a customs officer and that guy is talking to me, I would search his luggage... ;-).
@Michael, I can assure you that game companies aren't going out of business because of the cost of graphics, but because Publishers are facing a huge paradigm shift in their business model and they aren't funding external devs as much as they used to. They are afraid to invest in anything but their own internal studios, which they can comfortably give the $$$ to.
ReplyDeleteThere will come a day when we see a synthetic video clip on TV, such as the news, and we will not be able to tell that it's computerized and not real.
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