Yeah, yeah - a picture says a thousand words. Well, this pic - or, rather, these pics - stitched seamlessly together and mapped onto a 3-D model, tell a damn good story.
The computer-generated Jester, which debuts at Siggraph in August, was created with Life F/x, a facial-animation system based on years of biomedical-engineering research at MIT and the University of Auckland. Scratch her cheek and she's likely to bleed - beneath her skin are muscles and bone. Although the creators intend their digital human to become a simulation tool for surgical procedure, two of the MIT researchers - Paul Charette and Mark Sagar - joined Pacific Title/Mirage Studio to put the system to work in Hollywood.
"She's not quite ready for surgery," says Charette, since Jester's body is still being built. But she's ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille.
