Easy on the eyes

April 2, 2014   Uncategorized

Allow me to introduce you to Alex. She looks like many other models you might see, gifted with the luck of genetics. Here’s another photo of her from the front:

You can see that Alex is lucky to have many of the features that both men and women find physically attractive: Symmetry, physical features, hair length, and other chracteristics that tend to enhance attractiveness.

You all know, however, that I never make posts like this without a huge catch. The point here isn’t to make social commentary or objectify, but to point out amazing technology. You may already know where this is going, but here’s the big reveal:

She’s not real. Alex is completely computer-animated. Artist Mao Lin-Liao, from Khitan Digital in the Netherlands and who has made many other amazing renders, breaks down the extensive considerations that had to be made to create this digital design.

 Alex -Portrait of a Young Woman – Breakdown video from Khitan Digital on Vimeo.

This is, of course, not solely for the purposes of creating the ideal attractive specimen. This type of rendering and animation is used quite often in movies and games. Consider this image from Activision’s facial animation engine, and the animation below that showing not just realistic facial creation but fully appropriate animation mapped on top of it. 
This video is really something. It’s around a year old but I feel it shows the future of the design of artificial people, at least digitally. I know that sounds like an odd thing to say, but creating believable, relatable digital humans has been one of the big hurdles in computer animation. Once we can overcome the Uncanny Valley (the point at which we’re repulsed by artificial humans, and something we’ll talk about later in the semester), it will be a watershed – and creepy – moment.