The Very Simple Reason that Facial Motion Capture is Terrible

I have seen a lot of different research videos and papers on the topic of facial performance capture.  They put any number of markers on a face, video the markers with cameras  and they create a 3d mesh out of all of this data.

And than usually the results look smooth but ugly.  And not really acting that you would want to spend much time watching.

And often, going through this research, you will find images like this.


I've been drawing faces a lot lately, really simple faces.  Really expressive faces.  And you know what I always make sure to get right, even if everything else isn't great?  I always go for the eyes.  And than the mouth, and then the eye brows and maybe the nose.  And usually after that, the point and emotion of the drawing is pretty obvious.

So I look at these performance capture technologies and the first and most obvious thing that they don't capture is the eye.  And it isn't just the rotational position of the eye that is important to capture, it is the white space around the eye.

It's about the amount of the iris and pupil that is visible, the shape that cuts it off and the white space that surrounds it.

If you are to translate a performance capture onto a digital character, it is not the amount of rotation of the eye in the socket that must be transferred, it is the end result of that rotation that makes an image that we as humans with advanced facial recognition abilities can interpret that must be captured and transferred.

Human facial recognition is good, but it has been tricked by drawings for a long time.  It is just a matter on focusing on the important parts and letting everything else fall to the side.

Kyler

Wright Brother's Model

 

 I started building this model a few months ago and finally figured out how to finish it and present it.  I have a new-found respect for model builders who take model building to a whole different level of finish and detail.

Happy Father's and Mother's Day

My parents have come to visit in Montreal. I made them an animated card using my character from last year.

Made on my new tablet computer with TVpaint software. It feels a lot like using a magic animation lightable with magic paper.

Kyler

The Summit Poster

Drawing but different

I've been doing a lot of drawing. I'm trying to get a character designed for a game for Mory. It requires a female main characte

Character design is always difficult, and drawing faces is difficult and a giant hurdle that I don't felt I have ever really gotten over is drawing female faces and really understand what makes them female.

So this is just a big pile of female face and face drawing research that I have been doing.

Now there is something special about these drawings. They look like pencil but the aren't.

I just graduated from school and received as a graduation gift an Asus Ep121 tablet computer. It has a wacom pen built into the screen so that I can draw directly on it with pressure sensitivity and very precise line work.

I am really loving it. I don't feel at all hindred by the tablet anymore. I'm still working on getting some really good animation software for it, but I have use a trial of TVpaint and it is going to be great to create 2d animation on.

Kyler