3dMotionCapture
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The gorgeous faces and stunning cinematography of 'Until Dawn'
The PlayStation 4's latest exclusive Until Dawn is absolutely stunning visually. In particular? Its faces. By using 3D performance capture techniques that include strapping an HD camera rig to actor's heads (including Hayden Panettiere and Peter Stormare) to grab practically every minute detail and expression, the characters come to life in a pretty realistic fashion. What's really cool is that oftentimes once you let the DualShock 4 sit idle for a moment, the camera will zoom in on the face of whichever of the randy teens you're controlling. If motion controls are enabled, you can tilt the gamepad this way and that and the possibly doomed cabeza will follow suit accordingly. It's pretty neat!
Watch a dome full of cameras capture 3D motion in extreme detail
Conventional 3D motion capture is awkward; even if you don't mind people covered with dots or ping pong balls, you often get just a handful of data points that miss out on subtle movements. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University might just have a more elegant solution in store, though. They've built a geodesic dome whose 480 cameras work in concert to track a whopping 100,000 points without the need for markers. The system uses its abundance of video footage to estimate trajectories based on changes in light, motion and shape, rather than looking for arbitrary cues or interpolating image frames. As you can see in the clips below, the resulting data is both vividly detailed and natural-looking -- you can see individual confetti flakes falling to the ground, and it's easy to follow every nuance of a batter's swing.
Weekends with Engadget: Tokyo's vending machines, new buyer's guides and more!
This week, we learned about the dangers of stem cell treatment, explored the world of 3D motion capture and went on a vending machine shopping spree in Tokyo. Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last seven days. Oh, and be sure to subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
Engadget Daily: 3D motion capture, the tough reality of sapphire displays and more!
Today, we take a look at the history behind 3D motion capture animations, scratch-test a nearly indestructible sapphire display, watch iOS users join the AR war of Ingress and learn about a $20 chip that detects diabetes. Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last 24 hours.
L.A. Noire's amazing MotionScan facial capture system demonstrated (video)
In gaming, 3D graphics get more powerful, environments get more expansive, enemies get more intelligent, but still facial animations haven't progressed much since Pac-Man chomped his first power pellet in 1980. Finally, a major breakthrough courtesy of Australian company Depth Analysis. It has developed technology called MotionScan, which enables a high-res 3D recreation of a person's face -- not just capturing bits and pieces of facial animation but their entire head, right down to the hairstyle. It's getting its first use in next year's L.A. Noire, a 1940s PS3 and Xbox 360 murder mystery game from Rockstar, and while we don't know enough about the title to be able to say whether it's worth plunking down a pre-order now, after watching the video embedded below it's clear that the bar has been raised.
