Introduction and project aims
Facial animation is the most important part of character animation, and realistic and natural expression of emotions is one of the most important parts of animating a believable character. This, however, is also one of the most challenging aspects of animating a character. The human face is one of the most interesting and intricate parts of the human body. We can detect even the subtlest change of expression within the face, and its familiarity allows us to recognize one face out of a sea of hundreds that we come into contact with every day. In order to successfully animate facial expressions and emotion, a thorough understanding of the human facial muscular structure and how expressions are formed is necessary.
By using the research that I have collected on this subject, I will attempt to create my own facial animation system. Only a handful of facial animation systems have been designed and used that have recreated the human face in a realistically correct or scientific way (more about this will be discussed later). The system that I will create will be a muscle – driven facial animation system, which I will try to base as closely as possible to the real life human facial muscular system. I aim for it to move and react as closely as possible to real life, using scientifically correct positioning and movement of computer generated muscles. I also aim to produce a short animation demonstrating how my system works, and a custom user interface for manipulating it. My research on human and computer facial expression is crucial to the success of my system, and this report will document the research I undertook.