Computers Photo-Realism of Humans in Term Paper

Since its beginning, animation has intrinsically and historically critiqued this singular hegemonic vision of reality. "In opposition to a singular reality, animation tends toward multiplicity in its critique of photographic naturalism" (Surman, 2005).

Recently there has been a breakthrough that is going to allow eextraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology. This technology enables the minutest details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated. It is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as uncanny valley. This refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness (Richards, 2008).

In producing this process researchers started with a video of an employee talking. Then they broke the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a control system. The aim was to overcome the traditional difficulties of animating a human face, for instance that the skin looks too shiny, or that the movements are too symmetrical (Richards, 2008).In the past the methods for animating faces have involved putting dots on a face and observing the way the dots move. As a result, computer game animators have purposely simplified their creations so that the players realize immediately that the figures are not real (Richards, 2008). The applications that photorealism is going to have are limitless. There is a movement to improve the applications of photorealism and artificial intelligence so that they work together in harmony.

Works Cited

Augsanto, Kusuma. 2004. "Photorealistic rendering for augmented reality using environment illumination." CIMI Laborator.

< http://mrcas.mpe.ntu.edu.sg/research/art/photorealism.htm>

Richards, Jonathan. 2008. "Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games."

TimesOnline. 17 May 2009

< http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece>

Surman, David. 2005. "From Realism to Reality Effect and Affect: Epistemological Issues in Realist Theories of Animation." < http://davidsurman.blogspot.com/2005/05/from-realism-to-reality-effect-and.html>.....