Emotion-driven Deformation of Non-Human Faces
Ricky W. K. Chan, MSc thesis 1998
Abstract
This thesis describes a system designed for facial expression control. A prototype
in the Java language has been implemented based on this design. The target of facial
animation is an imaginary character. Firstly, the geometric data of the head of a given
character is read from a file. The file is in VRML format and the head geometry it
contains is in a hierarchical structure. Then, the geometry of the head is distorted
to get different facial expressions of emotion based on a pseudo-muscle system. These
facial expressions are mapped to emotion. The result of this mapping is used to create
a system for facial expression control by emotion. A character, Floops, has been chosen
for illustrating the concepts being described. The pseudo-muscle system designed in this
thesis enables Floops to exhibit a wide range of emotions on its face. The system allows
us to control the facial expression of Floops by changing its emotion. The control is
very easy to handle. When running on a computer with a moderate processor power
(a Pentium 200MHz personal computer), the facial expression can be changed in real time,
even when running the prototype on a Java virtual machine.
Thesis
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