Earlier this year NVIDIA demonstrated how they're pushing the limits of digital realism with FaceWorks AKA 'Digital Ira', developed in partnership with the Institute for Creative Technology. FaceWorks follows in a grand tradition of public rendering technology demo's begun in the GeForce 256 era, and of which Dawn is still probably the most memorable member. This time around the simulation utilises CUDA and DirectX 11 frameworks to render Ira, a disembodied head which is just this side of the uncanny valley, in real time.
Now, if you have a GeForce GTX670 or higher you too have the opportunity to run this real-time tech demo with today's public release of the executable:
Lifelike Human Face Rendering
Meet "Digital Ira". Ira represents a big leap forward in capturing and rendering human facial expression in real time, and gives us a glimpse of the realism we can look forward to in our favorite game characters.
This demonstration highlights the state of the art in performance capture. All Ira''s motions were acted out in a "light stage" at the Institute for Creative Technology at USC. The team there headed by Dr. Paul Debevec is able to photographically capture facial geometry, surface detail, and lighting information of an actor without any of the traditional tricks of face markers or special makeup.
This light stage data is pulled into NVIDIA''s demo engine, and using FaceWorks rendering technology we witness a realism of human facial rendering never before seen in real time. FaceWorks shading gives Ira lifelike skin, eyes, lips and teeth. Adaptive tessellation keeps the curves of his face perfectly smooth.
Play with this interactive demo to see Ira immersed in three different lighting environments. Adjust his skin rendering to see the effect of sub surface light transmission through his skin. And, see the realism of his facial motion as he stares you down with a myriad of lifelike expressions.
Meet "Digital Ira". Ira represents a big leap forward in capturing and rendering human facial expression in real time, and gives us a glimpse of the realism we can look forward to in our favorite game characters.
This demonstration highlights the state of the art in performance capture. All Ira''s motions were acted out in a "light stage" at the Institute for Creative Technology at USC. The team there headed by Dr. Paul Debevec is able to photographically capture facial geometry, surface detail, and lighting information of an actor without any of the traditional tricks of face markers or special makeup.
This light stage data is pulled into NVIDIA''s demo engine, and using FaceWorks rendering technology we witness a realism of human facial rendering never before seen in real time. FaceWorks shading gives Ira lifelike skin, eyes, lips and teeth. Adaptive tessellation keeps the curves of his face perfectly smooth.
Play with this interactive demo to see Ira immersed in three different lighting environments. Adjust his skin rendering to see the effect of sub surface light transmission through his skin. And, see the realism of his facial motion as he stares you down with a myriad of lifelike expressions.
If you don't have access to a discrete graphics card up to the standard of a GTX 670, fret ye not! Lesser NVIDIA graphics should still run this simulation, although you won't achieve the realtime rendering which really shows off the power of Kepler and the GTX Titan.
As with previous propriety demo's it's unlikely that rival GFX cards will be able to run the software without considerable work by software modders, so if you're running an AMD card the closest you're likely to get is a Youtube recording. Enjoy!
