According to Game Rant, Meta recently filed a new patent that showcases technologies that could lead to more realistic facial animations and lip-syncing in video games and virtual reality experiences. As Christopher Castellaw puts it, more realistic animations open the door to “more engaging, and immersive games and experiences.”
“Even as graphics have advanced in video games over the decades, allowing the creation of nearly photorealistic characters in recent years, portraying realistic speech and facial expressions for those characters has continued to provide a challenge to developers,” Castellaw writes. “Gamers’ brains are accustomed to seeing and reading the faces of other people, so even the best facial animation on a video game character can easily cross into uncanny valley territory, leading to characters looking ‘off’ or even downright disturbing. Meta’s patent could allow for the generation of realistic lip-syncing and facial expressions on the fly, saving time for developers and increasing immersion for players.”
This patent filing details several methods for translating a user’s speech into realistic lip-syncing and facial animations. This gives developers flexibility when it comes to how they choose to use these systems.
One part of the patent mentions using audio and video recordings of people as they read 50 different phonetically-balanced sentences. The system then tracks that person’s facial expressions as they read. By doing this, the technology can analyze these movements and blend them together to create realistically animated characters that have new, subtle movements.
(All information was provided by Game Rant)
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