Even the lowest-budget film or TV series would balk at such a slapdash job (although the animation of The Rock in The Scorpion King is the exception that proves this rule).īut before we talk about facial motion capture, we need to know what it is. Producing such facial animation today would be unheard of, simply because by modern standards they are very, very bad. In 1992, The Lawnmower Man’s effects, were considered revolutionary.

In the days of The Lawnmower Man, nearly thirty years ago, the faces of each 3D character were extremely basic designs that did not, or could not, convey the complexity of facial expression of the film’s actors (Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey). That comes out with face capture, otherwise known as facial mocap. There is certainly an element of truth in that but, in reality, there is much more fine detail in our work. And if you are a nerd, which most people in the industry are and wear as a badge of pride, you will be aware of how performance capture has been used in the production of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or Game of Thrones, or any of the other myriad science-fiction and action franchises. Most people, when this comes up, think of people in black suits, covered with ping pong balls, leaping about our motion capture studio in Berlin.

Often, when we talk about motion capture, our focus is mainly on the whole-body experience. Using Faceware for the face capture during a full body motion capture shoot

Faceware facial mocap