The first leg of production - dialog and facial recording - is a wrap!  Amazing performances by all were recorded both by facial capture systems and the audio crew.  The second phase of production continues at the end of February with body capture.   Stay tuned for our first web documentary.

We're entering the final week of preproduction.  The cast is entering their final days of preparation and final rehearsal.  Motion capture is soldering up a few more facial rigs.  Character has modeled up 17 of the 28 speaking roles.

Production is ready to rock on the 25th!

Work on a non-realistic and efficient Skin Shader for Renderman is completed.  Also opted to go with characterized eyebrows rather than individual hairs, which was making it look too photoreal.  This is a good balance of believability, efficiency, and stylization.

This concludes the lip sync system - Success!   This partially completed face is accessing a library of 58 mouth shapes.  Each character face takes about a day to setup to the system.  From there hours of lip matching work is saved.  The face is driven by Phasespace motion capture data.

Work is completed on an automated system for lip sync and facial animation using motion capture.  Here is one of our initial tests, enjoy!