New technique brings added realism to digital facial rendering

The engineers created the realistic virtual characters by capturing the details of the skin at resolution levels of approximately ten microns.

The technology pictures the microscopic geometry of patches of facial skin, in states of stretch and compression, which is then analysed and compared to neutral uncompressed skin. These findings then enabled the researchers to produce a model of how skin changes through facial expressions at the microscopic level.

Modern scanning technology can currently capture how skin moves at the mid-scale resolutions of less than a millimetre using motion capture. However, the dynamics of skin at the microstructure level, below a tenth of a millimetre, cannot be directly captured. Facial skin and folds have never been captured in great detail around areas of the eyes, nose and mouth.  Consequently, gaming characters are less lifelike.