Ten years ago, we were amazed to see that a video game character synchronized its lips with the dialogue, blinked, or followed us with its gaze. Today, we not only expect to see those details, but we also express our disapproval when the animations aren't up to standard. The latest advances come from Snappers Tech, whose real-time demo on Unreal Engine 4 definitely rewrites a couple of rules.
Animating is difficult, there's no doubt about it. Setting aside hardware resources and the complexity of the tools, animation demands time, effort, dedication, and precision. If any of these elements fails, the results speak for themselves, and a compelling example was Mass Effect: Andromeda. Beyond the problems in its plot and the occasional technical detail, the quality of the animations set the franchise back ten years. Add the merger of BioWare Montreal with EA Motive Studios, and the fact that the Web had no mercy, and it's most likely that we won't see another Mass Effect for a long time. So what comes next? If Andromeda became an example of what not to do, what direction should studios take? Maybe something like this...
The Demo
The demo was published by the folks at Snappers Tech, whose work extends to titles like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Mafia III, and the upcoming Shadow of War. It's a new facial "rigging" tool compatible with Maya and Unreal Engine 4 (which in this case was the chosen engine), but the official page indicates that compatibility extends to all game engines and animation packages. The tool is based on the FACS standard, allows combining a wide number of expressions, establishing a smoother transition between them, and reproducing precise muscle constraints.
Impressive? Yes. Perfect? No. It may take someone without experience by surprise, but the trained eye will have no trouble detecting its weak points, starting with the teeth. Unfortunately, the technical information ends here, and we have no idea how long we'll have to wait for developers to get their claws on similar technology. However, it's good to know that the future promises such things.
