Animation and digital effects studio Pendulum has been pursuing the challenge of believable 3D characters and digital acting by dedicating substantial R&D efforts toward creating a unique solution for this growing need in the entertainment industry. Partnering with the mocap experts at House of Moves, the Pendulum team is diving deep into the complex realm of high-end digital actors with the development of its new proprietary facial motion capture software, and a uniquely powerful 3D character creation pipeline.
A fundamental hurdle in bringing digital actors to the screen is achieving realistic facial animation. With the most recent implementations of the Vicon motion-capture system, Los Angles-based House of Moves is able to achieve an unparalleled level of precision in the capture of facial motion. But applying that data efficiently, cost-effectively and in a manner that successfully breathes life into a lifeless digital model has been painfully difficult. Pendulums research into this area has resulted in the creation of a proprietary software application called Stretchmark. Their primary goal is to make it not only possible, but also efficient and economical to bring the nuance of a real actors facial performance into the virtual world.
To fully demonstrate this new technology, Pendulums owners, Robert Taylor and Michael McCormick, needed to capture a powerfully expressive performance that delivered a wide emotional range. We wanted to put the process through a vigorous and unforgiving test to see if our digital actor could really emote and what could possibly be a better source of emotional acting than Shakespeare? notes Taylor.
They chose a passionate monologue from ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, and proceeded to build a 3D Mark Antony and a richly textured environment appropriate to the play. Pendulums artists then sculpted more than 40 facial blend-shapes for the character. These sculpted expressions can be realistic or exaggerated, allowing a digital character infinite stylistic possibilities, ranging from life like to cartoony.
Next, they worked with the House of Moves team to simultaneously capture the full performance of the actor, including his body, hands, facial motions and even his voice. The data was then applied to the digital character using the studios new software, and Mark Antony came to life.
The new paradigm allows Pendulum to transform extensive amounts of facial mo-cap data into extremely realistic and accurate facial animation. The process delivers exceptional results at surprising speeds with very little fine tuning needed, yet still provides directors and animators a great deal of flexibility to tweak or add to the characters facial expressions. While the implications for the film and commercial industry are obvious, Pendulum is already applying the technique in the games development arena as well. With this proven approach, the realism of facial and full-body performance is only limited by the quality of the actor and the directors vision.
To view the MARK ANTONY movie, please visit: www.studiopendulum.com/qt_images_mat.html.
Pendulum Studios (www.studiopendulum.com) is the San Diego-based 3D animation and digital vfx studio specializing in high-end character animation and storytelling. Owned and operated by directors McCormick and Taylor, the studio strives to produce the highest quality animation for commercials, game cinematics film and their own animated shorts.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
