Modeling and Synthesis of Realistic Visual Speech in 3D - 3D Modeling and Animation: Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body - page 289

Figure 20. The final animation can be enhanced with expressions that are
not related to speech, such as eye blinks and emotions.
As a final note, it is interesting to mention that the system proposed here has been
implemented as an Alias/Wavefront's Maya plug-in. Figure 1 gives a quick
overview of the processing steps.
Furthermore, we have already experimented with the superposition of speech
and emotions. Detailed displacements were measured for the six basic emotions.
We found that linear addition of displacements due to visemes and emotions
worked out well in these preliminary trials. An example is shown in Figure 20.
Trends
Technologically the trend in face animation is one towards a stronger 3D
component in the modeling and animation pipeline. Entertainment certainly is one
of the primary marketplaces for the work described in this chapter. The 3D
industry has had a significant impact on this industry. With human characters as
one of the central elements, 3D animation of characters and special effects have
become an integral part of many blockbuster movie productions. The game
industry has in the meantime eclipsed the movie industry in terms of gross
revenues. Also, in this branch of industry, there is a trend towards more realistic
human characters. The most notable trend in 3D digital media is the convergence
of these playgrounds. Productions often target multiple markets simultaneously,
with, e.g., movies coupled to games and Web sites, as well as an extensive line
of gadgets.