New Realities: Design – Arts – Technology

The Holy Grail of visual effects in film is to create and animate digital human faces indistinguishable from reality. The reason why human faces are so notoriously difficult to model lies in the Uncanny Valley effect. Even the tiniest imperfection in a digital facial model or animation triggers an alert function in our brain and induces a feeling of alienation. This is exactly what we all experience when looking at digital characters in early films or computer games. For stylized and non-human faces, this effect is far less important – a phenomenon used heavily in the computer-animated film industry.

The design and development of characters that convey emotional depth and bond with us are one of the major research efforts of DisneyResearch|Studios. Markus Gross will give insight into the fundamental challenges and opportunities for creating digital humans. He estimates that – with the help of artificial intelligence – it won’t take another decade until they become indistinguishable.

Derek Bradley is a Principal Research Scientist at DisneyResearch|Studios in Zurich and leads the Digital Humans research team. In his research he focuses on various problems that involve creating digital humans, including digital scanning, facial performance capture, facial animation, and visual effects for films.

When?
September 18th, 2020, 12:30 pm

Where?
Cinema Toni, 3.G02 (level 3)

Website:
studios.disneyresearch.com