Ben's face

. The last Oscar in VFX, as expected, went to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" . And is that aged face behind Brad Pitt is a true technological revolution that is a leap in the creation of digital human characters, a challenge that so far had not been achieved so successfully.

The lecture given by Ed Ulbrich TED Unveils encounters in the process step by step and not be missed. It's really interesting and highly recommended to see.

In short, Ed Ulbrich, executive producer of effects house Digital Domain , tells in this talk as this film could not be performed earlier because there was no adequate technology was capable of aging in a realistic and progressive for an actor.

It was in 2004 when he finally decided to produce the film, although the technique employed was not clear.

It concluded that he must use a different cast of actors for the character's body and to show the evolution of this over time. On the other hand a single actor needed for the interpretation of the face, and to keep and physical features along the entire film. The selected actor turned out to be Brad Pitt. Then digitally "implant" the head in the aging bodies.

The problem was how.

First we looked at the use of the technique known as motion capture, the problem is that this technology works well for the kinetics of bodies and limbs but can not accurately capture the emotions of a human face.

So the idea was a new technique still under development. distribuidas en distintos ángulos graban entonces el fantasmagórico rostro del actor y luego esos movimientos son interpretados por un software capaz de recrearlos en 3D. It was the face of the actor record previously impregnated with a fluorescent makeup to turn off the lights see only the main features and their gestures. 4 cameras located at various angles then recorded the ghostly face of the actor and then these movements are interpreted by software to recreate in 3D.

If you want more information about this technology you can find it here: Contour Reality Capture of MOVA

The invention does not end there. In addition, three busts modeled latex character at different stages of age, 80-70-60, but the basis of the features of Brad, and was scanned in 3D (do not miss this part of the video.) Thus three models were obtained at high resolution with the smallest details of wrinkles and folds.

On this model able to apply the interpretation of Brad Pitt, captured in this unique way. That's what they lick "retargeting".

para la “decapitación” de los cuerpos , tracking para la colocación del nuevo rostro… Solved the main problem that remained was the implementation of other mature technologies that, while Ed does not go into detail, we can sense to see the making off: HDRI lighting of the face in 3D to simulate the different environments, rotoscoping and chroma for "decapitation" of bodies, tracking for placement of the new face ...

In short, the result is an impressive digital recreation of a human face with all its details, small tics, subtle movements, expressions ... able to convey emotion and feeling without digital puppet so far caused humans in 3D.

Although it is true that there is something in the brightness of the eyes that betrays its digital nature, that subtle spark that has so far not been able to be reproduced by any means.