The Digital Emily Project: Achieving a Photoreal Digital Actor
by Oleg Alexander, Mike Rogers, William Lambeth, Jen-Yuan Chiang, Wan-Chun Ma, Chuan-Chang Wang, and Paul Debevec
For more than three decades, computer graphics researchers have been working to create a photorealistic digital actor. In the Digital Emily project, Image Metrics and the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies (USC ICT) animated a digital face using new results in 3D facial capture, character modeling, animation, and rendering. The project aimed to cross the “uncanny valley” that divides a synthetic-looking face from a real, animated, expressive person. The key technologies included a fast high-resolution digital face-scanning process using USC ICT’s Light Stage capture system and Image Metrics’ video-based facial-animation system. Read More »
