Quiet Man searches for "Intelligent Life" in two new 15 and 30-second spots for K'nex toy company. In the commercial, two animated aliens are sent to Earth to search for "signs of intelligent life." When they arrive, they ignore human beings and concentrate instead on a robotic toy built with high-tech plastic blocks called K'nex. The robotic toy has a Cyber Key device used to program it to perform different types of behavior such as that of a guard dog or a battle robot. Quiet Man used face2face's facial analysis software, alterEGO, to automate the lip synchronization and head movement of the 3D animated alien characters. The face2face software was used by Quiet Man to capture actors' performances and apply the facial motion and emotional information to the animated characters. Quiet Man lead animator David Shirk said, "I initially thought the software's design was intriguing and different. However, the results out of the box were some of the best facial capture I've ever seen. I really liked the openness of the system. Once a 3D rig is created for a character, you can simply create new animated sequences by applying new Facial Animation Parameter (FAP) files, the output of the face2face processing, over that character again and again. We built layers on top of the face2face rig so that their information remains intact, and we can also import new data with a new set of controls to the character. Because of face2face's flexibility, we were able to add many things to it - like turning the corners of the mouth, changing the shape of the mouth, and accentuating syllables in the software without compromising its functionality." The commercial was produced for ad agency Griffin Bacal.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
