Ben's face

. The last Oscar in VFX, as expected, was for "The Strange Case of Benjamin Button". And is that behind Brad Pitt's old face 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 that was capable of aging in a realistic and progressive for an actor.

It was in 2004 when he finally decided to produce the film, even though the technique employed was unclear.

He concluded that he must use a different cast of actors for the character's body and to show the evolution of it over time. Moreover actor was needed only for the interpretation of the face, and to keep and physical features along the entire film. Actor Brad Pitt turned out to be selected. 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 lights that see only the main features and their gestures. 4 cameras distributed at different angles then recorded the ghostly face of the actor, then these movements are interpreted by software to recreate in 3D.

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

The invention does not end there. In addition, model 3 busts in latex character at different phases 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 was obtained 3 models at high resolution with the smallest details of wrinkles and folds.

On this model succeeded in applying 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 intuit by watching the making off: HDRI lighting of the face in 3D to simulate different environments, rotoscoping and chroma for "decapitation" of bodies, tracking for placement of the new face ...

Ultimately, the result is an impressive digital recreation of a human face with all its details, little tics, subtle movements, expressions ... able to convey emotions without seeming digital puppet so far caused humans in 3D.

While 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.