Technology That Will be Used for Special Effects.
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If you smile, the computer generated face on the screen will smile, too. The Communications Research Laboratory of the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto Prefecture) has developed a three dimensional computer face rendered system that will accurately reproduce the facial expression of the operator in real time. The computer generated face can be used as a substitute for a real person's face for a Virtual Space Teleconferencing System through which people in different locations can hold a conference. It is also attracting expectation to be a "dream technology" which can be used for visual special effects for movies.
The greatest feature of this technology is that it can detect slight movements over the entire face and reproduce them with computer graphics. The user wears a helmet with a small camera attached to it and image of the user's face are sent to the computer. Based on this information, the computer then analyzes the movements of six parts of the face, including the eyes, mouth and forehead, that change easily with different expressions. The second that the user opens his mouth or blinks, for example, the computer reads the degree of brightness of the part that moved, and calculates how much the skin moved and how the expression has changed. Based on this data, the system will change the expression of the computer rendered face on the screen. Currently, producing computer graphics scenes for movie special effects requires a great deal of time, but by using this technology, if the basic computer graphics images are created, a computer graphics scene can be completed by just adding the movements of a person. This will lead to a significant reduction in production time. |
