How facial animation is created

Human facial expressions are highly expressive and informative. You can understand the person you are talking to without saying a word, just by looking at his or her facial expression.

Sadness, happiness, surprise, disappointment, anger, fear, admiration, disgust - all can be easily read on the most intuitive level.

However, even a game/animated character should have a believable and rich facial expression - there are no exceptions. You want people to believe in what is happening on the screen, right?

Read on, and below you will learn about the possibilities and subtleties of facial animation.

Motion scan

Motion scan - this is when the real face of a real person is surrounded by a lot of high-resolution cameras, each of which covers a certain area. A set of special programs using dynamic scanning creates a detailed model and changes its geometry.

Then retopology (simplification of the geometric mesh) is performed so that computers and consoles can handle the workload.

Motion scanning is expensive, but very effective. Typically, something simpler is used to create facial animation. For example, motion trackers.

Speaking of which...

Motion tracker

Motion tracker - a kind of industry standard. The method is simple and fast: mark points on the actor's face at key positions that should be clearly visible on the recording. You also need a camera (preferably fixed in one position).

Retargeting

Retargeting is when the facial animation has controls that can be pulled and some parts of the face will move. This is a very convenient method because it allows you to refine the emotion right in the process of producing the video.

Photogrammetry

Photogrammetry - the process of obtaining hundreds of scans of the object from different angles and creating a 3D model based on them. Sometimes it is much easier than finding a full-fledged actor to perform a motion scan or motion tracker.

Motion capture

Motion capture for creating animations can be done using suits with optical sensors. The process is similar to scanning, but the difference is that it is not static. Motion capture provides data that is then processed on a computer before being edited by animators.

What character the actor is portraying depends on the amount of rework that is done. If they are needed at all. And yes, sometimes working with facial expressions in this way is called performance capture.

Although motion capture speeds up the creation of animation, it is still much more expensive.

High quality facial animation is key to the success of a game project. On our site you can find a lot of content that will help you in your development - models, textures, materials, plugins and even full-fledged add-ons for programs. You can download everything completely and without registration.