wow?? I've been doing character animation professionally (read: features) for 10yrs on the computer and I didnt see anything new there...and certainly nothing that made me say wow. I sure didnt think that African Warrior was very far beyond Polar Express.
Every couple of years this same old hype gets dragged up and people get all excited and then the studios hit the bandwagon and make another Final Fantasy or Polar express. It sucks, the eyes are dead, and its creepy. Uncanny Valley revisited. The imporvements each time are incremental at best (to my eye.)
But the real bottom line of all this is that its kind of gimmicky. Character animation is meant to *EXAGGERATE* reality, not replicate it. What they describe here is really more visual effects than character animation. Studios love this because they hope someday they can stop dealing with all those annoying actors, animators, and artists. If you want to make a movie about James Dean dating Marilyn Monroe, go right ahead. But if you want to make a movie about a fish thats in love with a bug, mocap (facial or gestural) isn't going to be the most appealing solution.
The only photoreal CG Character that ever made me say wow was Gollum and there were many, many animators (whom i know personally) who both animated and cleaned up facial motion capture for thousands of hours to make Gollum. No slight to Andy Serkis who is a very talented performer, but it just ain't that simple. Animators will be around as long as there are children (and adults) who want to see thier imaginations taken somewhere its never been before. (i.e. forever)
