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In addition to its own in-house expertise, Epic has been partnering on the MetaHumans project with companies such as Faceware and Digital Domain that also specialize in the automation of facial animation using AI-based approaches (see Figure 2).
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This kind of machine-learning assisted facial automation is becoming increasingly prevalent within the FX and gaming industries and the early release of the MetaHuman Creator comes already enabled for real-time motion capture. It is a display that would have been unthinkable in a pre-AI era of performance capture – Cubic Motion’s computer vision and machine learning algorithms enable the tracking and transfer of some 200 facial features, as subtle as a single eye wrinkle, without the need for physical markers (gone in this case are the iconic dots positioned on an actor’s face that we have come to associate with processes of motion capture). The Epic, 3Lateral, and Cubic Motion partnership first caused an industry stir when, at the 2018 Game Developers Conference, they unveiled “Siren,” a photo-realistic avatar billed as “the first digital human,” rendered in real-time and linked to the live performance of an actor on stage (Cubic Motion 2018). Tellingly, two smaller performance capture technology companies recently acquired by Epic were instrumental in the development of the MetaHuman project: 3Lateral, specializing in 3D and 4D scanning technology, and Cubic Motion, focused on the use of computer vision technologies for the automation of facial animation. As Eric Furie from USC’s Motion Capture Program confirms, “Facials still remain the Holy Grail of performance capture” (Furie in Sito 2013: 213). While the character generation capabilities of Epic’s platform are impressive, it is in the sphere of motion capture automation (facial automation in particular) where the disruptive potential of these recent advances in “digital humanity” becomes most apparent. Author’s use of MetaHuman Creator application.
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Perhaps most significant in terms of their actual use, MetaHumans emerge fully “rigged” for animation (embedded with a series of manipulation control points) and available for live linking to a number of performance capture applications. A legion of MetaHumans ready to populate a developing Metaverse – free to travel across gaming environments, VR experiences, and animated films, but decisively tethered to the Unreal platform.
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By April an early access version of the creator app was available and seemed to deliver on Epic’s early promises – near photo-realistic digital characters created with adjustable facial features, skin complexion, make-up, teeth, and hair (see Figure 1). “Creating truly convincing digital humans is hard,” acknowledged Epic’s press release (Unreal 2021), while claiming that the MetaHuman Creator could provide real-time generation of high-fidelity digital characters within minutes, drawing from an available library of pre-set faces, 30 available hairstyles, 18 body types, and with the ability to further custom sculpt the avatars.
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In February of 2021, Epic Games, developers of the Unreal Engine, a leading video game software engine, announced the impending launch of its MetaHuman Creator application.