Digital Replicas May Change Games and Film

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Steve Perlman is touting technology that he says can create animated digital reproductions of the human body that are as accurate as photographs, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Game makers could use the system, called Contour, to create very realistic animated characters in videogames with fully controllable movements and facial expressions. Film makers could use the technology as a kind of digital makeup, changing an actor's looks or words or switch camera angles without costly retakes. The technology can even substitute one actor's face for another's and create exact replicas of long-dead historical figures.'"

Virtual Stars?

[dave1791]

Given that TV studios already like reality TV in large part because the cast is cheap, will we start seeing 100% virtual actors? From a business standpoint, intellectual property beats a human face that ages, gets into tabloids ( and potentially ruining the carefully marketed image ) is costly and needs to be recycled regularly.

The tin-foil hatter in me is screaming

[Alranor]

I bet Homeland Security will love this.

Suspect that someone is a terrorist, but have no evidence at all to support your allegations. - No problem, just whip up a photo-realistic animation of them attending a local bomb-making class. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Re:Virtual Stars?

[montyzooooma]

Ian McDonalds "River of Gods" has plenty about virtual actors - thing is though in order to make them feel more real to the viewers they also have their own backstories to generate interest. So they appear to have their own love lives etc going on outside the soaps they appear in. Arguably without the hype around "movie stars" there wouldn't be "movie stars" there'd just be actors. But actors don't sell tickets stars do. So in reality that bad-boy virtual actor is going to be getting thrown out of virtual clubs after a virtual fracas just to give the media something to report on.

AI

[stunt_penguin]

Game makers might achieve photorealistic representations of human appearance and motion, but our new (mostly welcome) digital overlords will still bump into walls, get stuck behind things, get in your way, not look at you while they're talking and generally make mistake and act like they're just computer representations. Game makers for the most part have all the graphical juice they need to convince us of a world's authenticity.

Though I really do enjoy advances in the level of graphical detail that increasing sophistication in hardware and software bring, I feel we need better AI, not fancier graphics . If a game's AI was as big a selling point (and therefore had the same amount of money invested in developing technologies and software for it's advancement) as the graphical prowress of the hardware then I think Alyx in Half Life 2 would probably have gone sentient at this stage.

"I'm sorry Gordon, but your apparent lack of regard for your own safety means I don't want to get involved with you, i'm just afraid of getting hurt."

bad news for films

[chucken]

I think in some aspects this is bad news for films. I'm completely turned off the idea of watching a movie if I think that they've messed about with an actor's face in order to improve on their expression or fix something. I think it's horrendous. I wonder how many actors will shortly have in their contract that film makers can't animate over their face without written consent? Speaking of which, I wonder how many actors currently have written into their contracts/estates that their image can't be raped after their death in cheesy car adverts etc?

Re:$2000 per second...

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's $2000/second this year.

Next year it will be $1000/second. The year after, even less. In 5-10 years, it will be possible to do it on a $2000 desktop in near realtime.

You just have to look at how quickly morphing technology went from top blockbusters only (Terminator 2) to TV commercials, to something that can be done at home right now.

Re:virtual pop icons

[meburke]

"Someday, we will have the ability to create totally new "people" for movies, without relying on any existing images."

This has been done in Japan. The first one I remember is Kyoko http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9702/04/japan.date/kyoko.s m.movie.html [cnn.com]
but I've seen other, more realistic stuff since then.

How long before (virtual) snuff films are so real the "thought police" legislate against them?

Re:UNLIMITED P0RN! and some serious comments

[Sathias]

This may revolutionize the porn industry. Imagine taking all the best porn actresses in their primes and putting them all in one movie. Check that, 1,000 different movies. Now it's possible. On a serious note, the less actual sex involved in making the porn, the less risk to the actors.

If this technology is used for pr0n its only a matter of time until someone sells custom-made pornos of the buyer with the partner(s) of thier choice.

Been done, japense virtual idol

[SmallFurryCreature]

The first was Kyoke Date and others have followed. They are of course not completly virtual as they still need a real human to supply the voice but it is getting there.

She was apparently a moderate success, a typical idol. Not all idols are shortlived but she was and with so many real girls wanting to be idols who wants to create a virtual one? They are so hard to audition on the couch if you know what I mean.

But yeah, you can see the appeal of a virtual Han Solo or Indiana Jones. Just crank them movies out without having to deal with a grandpa actor.

Re:Movie to game adaptions

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Realistic animations are already possible, has been for ages, it's called motion capture."

Motion capture doesn't work for the face. You could be thinking about performance capture, which does capture the face, but there's debate about how effective that really is. In any event, no, it has NOT been here for ages. If one actor really can drive the actions of another, this is a Big Deal TM. You would not believe the amount of work that is done to deal with facial movements on a character. Check out the extras DVDs on King Kong or I, Robot if you're really curious about it.

"I only see the use of this technology for movie to game adaptions were they can quickly copy a real life actor to 3D. For the rest, why would you want to hire multiple actors to do the same thing what a couple of voice actors, motion capture actors and animators can do."

Funny, the article had a couple of interesting ideas in that department. The character aging in reverse gag, for example, is a rather interesting one. As for the latter half of your question, the answer is time. The end result is a moving character. It's time consuming to hand-key animation, not to mention the potential for lack of subtlety. If you can just throw one talented actor into a scanner and get the performance you need with minimal clean-up, you're in a better place.

"Besides, how would you use this technology in a non-realistic game."

Have you played San Andreas?

I realize a lot of people in this thread don't see the point. Just remember that the human body is the hardest thing to get right when it comes to CG. Remember all those complaints in the Star Wars prequels and the Matrix Trilogy about the digital doubles not looking right? Contour may or may not drag us from that rut, I couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that it's still a problem today and it's a Good Thing if they can find a solution that allows the talents of actors to drive the performance of a CG character. The possibilities are a lot broader than a lot of you can imagine. Go read an issue or two of Cinefex. You'll be surprised at what technologies are already making a huge difference in modern movies, even though you probably never have noticed.

Return to Human Purity

[writerjosh]

I think the video game industry will run with this, and make it a great success. However, I think the film industry will play with this (and other motion-capture technologies) for a while, then resort back to good humans. Why? The actors will play along for a while, but their performances will lose authority because audiences will feel their performances were "enhanced" with computer aid. Just like in sports, we want our athletes to perform completely on their own merits, and not with the boost of technology. Sure, digital imagery can make an actor look younger, happier, etc, but ultimately, there will be a "return to purity" movement led by actors and demanded by audiences who are fed up with digital trickery. We want real human emotion, not digitized human emotion.