In-game speech animation is about to get a whole lot better

primesuspect · Feb 2012

Ivan · Feb 2012

Canti · Feb 2012

Wow

csimon · Feb 2012

Amazing advancements since Bell Labs of the '80's.

Annes · Feb 2012

Oh boy.

BHHammy · Feb 2012

Now THAT is impressive.

If we can make L.A.-Noire-calibur facial animations far easier and cheaper to accomplish, it'll do wonders for the medium (at least as far as folks who take advantage of it properly).

UPSWeezer · Feb 2012

:eyes:

MiracleManS · Feb 2012

I did notice that the faces are mostly stationary outside of the cheek/mouth. I wonder what kind of cost is incurred when you incorporate full facial expressions?

Needless to say, this is still amazing.

Thrax · Feb 2012

This video is awesome without sound. It looks like a bunch of babbling, emotionless mannequins.

Snarkasm · Feb 2012

The tech is awesome, but at the end of the article, what stuck with me was how much one of the guys from Speech Graphics looks like @mas0n, heh.

PirateNinja · Feb 2012

I wonder if they could work with linguistic experts and statisticians to develop databases that essentially mapped common facial expressions to common verbal expressions. For example .. you see something cute and say "awwww" .. your eyebrows lift and you make the "isn't that cute face"

If they could automate that and create an API for it along with their lower jaw/mouth/tongue animations then I think they would be in serious business here.

Tushon · Feb 2012

I wonder if they could work with linguistic experts and statisticians to develop databases that essentially mapped common facial expressions to common verbal expressions. For example .. you see something cute and say "awwww" .. your eyebrows lift and you make the "isn't that cute face"

If they could automate that and create an API for it along with their lower jaw/mouth/tongue animations then I think they would be in serious business here.

The man you would be looking for is Dr. Paul Eckman and his creation, FACS. TL;DR: he figured out the emotional significance of every facial expression and mapped it to the specific muscles involved.

PirateNinja · Feb 2012

Great, I contacted them re: Dr. Eckman and our suggestion. Perhaps something comes of it.

Tushon · Feb 2012

We could say, "I did that" and get a mention in the credits!

Ryan Wilsey · Feb 2012

Mind. Blown. It's not Pixar, but it sure as hell would be better than 90% of the games I've seen so far that still have "sock puppet" mouths.

Sledgehammer70 · Feb 2012

Just saying... EA has had tech like this for over 7 years.

chrisWhite · Feb 2012

Sledge is right, while perhaps one of the more impressive contenders this is nothing new.

test · Feb 2012

test

PirateNinja · Feb 2012

Response:
http://www.speech-graphics.com/automating-nonverbal-facial-animation/

primesuspect · Feb 2012

If EA has had that tech for seven years, how come this looks way, way better than any game I've ever seen?

PirateNinja · Feb 2012

I also think there may be confusion about the key factor in this technology. It isn't just a "it looks so good" thing, it's the fact that the animation is generated by the audio recording itself and it still looks that good. There was no manual tuning or matching. I also question EA having anything like that.

Howdy, Stranger!

All Discussions

In-game speech animation is about to get a whole lot better

Comments

Talk to Us

The 5¢ Tour

Obligatory Blather