From MIT's Labs
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Virtual Expressions
Computer graphics technique transfers facial expressions
Results: Researchers from MIT and Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories have created a computer model that allows them to capture from video the facial expression, speech-related mouth shapes, and other key identifying features of one person’s face and digitally transfer a select combination of those attributes to video of another person’s face. In one example, the researchers took a surprised look from one person and the mouth position from a second person and placed those two features on the face of a third person filmed with a blank expression; in the resulting image, she looked surprised.
Why It Matters: Making digital facial movements look natural is a major challenge in computer animation. These new tools could be used to give computer-generated characters in films and video games more-realistic faces, based on the movements made by live actors. Existing techniques, such as those used in movies like The Polar Express, typically capture the motion of a live actor using reflective markers stuck to the actor’s body and face. The MIT method can capture motion and expressions from a video recording of the actor without the need for markers, making this kind of computer animation potentially simpler and cheaper.
Methods: Daniel Vlasic of MIT and his colleagues created their model using data from 3-D scans of 31 subjects making different facial expressions and mouthing different sounds. They then filmed subjects performing–singing, for instance. They tracked the facial movements of the subjects and fed that data into the model. The model used that data to change the expressions or mouth movements of a second person, and the researchers imposed those changes on video of the person. The model allowed the researchers to manipulate a subject’s attributes, such as a smile or identifying features, independently of one another, so that they could transfer, say, a smile to a person without changing that person’s identity. – By Corie Lok
Source: Vlasic, D., et al. 2005. Face transfer with multilinear models. ACM Transactions on Graphics 24:426-433.
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