Synthetic Actors

1. How to Make a Film with Synthetic Actors.- 1.1 Computer Animation and Synthetic Actors.- 1.2 The Film Rendez-vous à Montréal.- 2. Three-Dimensional Construction of Synthetic Actors.- 2.1 Planning and Preparation of Models for 3D Reconstruction.- 2.2 How to Enter the Shapes.- 2.3 Photographs.- 2.4 Object Composition.- 3. Human Prototyping.- 3.1 Local Transformations of Existing Synthetic Actors.- 3.2 Shape Interpolation Between Human Faces.- 4. Body Animation of Synthetic Actors.- 4.1 Principles of Body Animation.- 4.2 Skeleton Definition and Positioning.- 4.3 Skeleton Animation.- 5. Hand Animation, Object Grasping, and Foot Animation.- 5.1 Hand Skeleton and Surface.- 5.2 Hand Animation.- 5.3 Object Grasping and Manipulating.- 5.4 Foot Animation.- 6. Facial Animation of Synthetic Actors.- 6.1 A Three-Level Approach to Facial Animation.- 6.2 The Facial Parameters.- 6.3 The Expressions: Phonemes and Emotions.- 6.4 The Script Level.- 6.5 A Script Example from the Film Rendez-vous à Montréal.- 6.6 Interpolating Facial Parameters and Expressions Between Two Different Human Faces.- 7. Color, Reflectance, Transparency, and Texture.- 7.1 Colors.- 7.2 Reflectance.- 7.3 Transparency and Textures.- 8. Cameras, Lights, and Shadows.- 8.1 Cameras.- 8.2 Lights.- 8.3 Shadows.- 9. Choreography.- 9.1 Decors and Actors.- 9.2 Cameras and Lights.- 9.3 Camera and Light Paths.- Appendix: The HUMAN FACTORY Software.- A. 1 The Architecture of the HUMAN FACTORY System.- A.2 The DIGIT3D Program.- A.3 The SABRINA System.- A.4 The BODYJPARTS System.- A.5 The BODY_MOVTNG System.- A.6 The FACE_MOVING System.- A.7 The M3RANIM System.- A.8 The DISPLAY Program.

Advanced computer animation techniques for creating synthetic three-dimensional actors are described in detail by the creators of an award-winning film. The method opens new vistas in motion pictures, television and advertizing.