Cutting-Edge Face Replacement ... on Ice

I'm a little confused why you had to go through the process of making a plaster cast. Couldn't the actual faces be scanned to make the 3D model? What am I missing here?

Posted by George H. on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 09:12 AM

Mark, nice digital stuntwork. These face replacing techniques could change a lot of things about moviemaking and postproduction. What other kinds of movie scenes do you see applying this kind of technique to?

Posted by Laszlo on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 10:37 AM

To date -- and I’d love to be convinced otherwise -- there doesn’t seem to be a system out there for capturing the detail in the face that a scan system like “XYZ RGB” can do. You get a little bit of the subtle detail from the handheld scanners, but the combination of subject and camera movement makes the scan miss the pore details or the tiny creases that come from the side of the main crease near the eyes. Having a solid, unmoving plaster cast is in my opinion by far the best way to get that level of detail. I’ve used both and, depending on the feature, a lesser detailed model might have worked for other types of facial effects. We needed to make sure that the detail was there from the start as doing full CG faces that are acting up close to camera is an unexplored country and we didn’t want to go into this sacrificing details from the start. Like I say, if you’re a 3D scanning vendor, please show me examples of the maximum level of raw detail that you can capture and I’ll be more than happy to rethink my opinions. The other thing is that the actors normally find it quite exciting to have a cast made from their faces and always want a copy for their mantlepiece above the fire. Creepy, but understandable! As for cost, I’ve been told the plaster cast way is too involved and costs more... Maybe up front you spend a little more time getting the quality you want, and the cost is a very small % more, but then you save a LOT more at the back end when you have a model that has all the detail you need in it and doesn’t need to be worked on for weeks just to get it ready for what you need.

Posted by Mark Breakspear on Thursday, April 12, 2007 @ 04:57 PM

This is a great question and it cuts right to the heart of what made Blades so exciting to work on. Essentially any actor can now “do” the stunt in a much more visually exciting way. A spoof of any Olympic sport could have any actor diving off the highest board, or pole-vaulting to victory. Blades was just the tip of the iceberg. How people take this technology and move it on -- that’s something I’m very excited about.

Posted by Mark Breakspear on Thursday, April 12, 2007 @ 05:19 PM

Didn't the soft omni-directional lighting of the ice rink actually make the job of face replacement a lot easier? If the stunt double were outside in bright sunlight, a 180-degree turn of the head would be a nightmare for the animators...right?

Also: how did you handle the problem of hair from the wigs flying in front of the faces?

Posted by David Halliburton on Friday, April 13, 2007 @ 08:12 AM

Look all I want to see is the video you are offering. Why is that so hard?

Posted by robert dalva on Friday, April 13, 2007 @ 10:33 AM

David: Yes and no. We shot the actor performances in a multi-directional lighting environment in order to remove any shadows on their faces. We did this so we could light them in CG to match the scene. The presumption that the ice rink was a soft lit environment is an obvious thing to think, but it's unfortunately not the case. At the LA sports arena you have a back of very bright lights on the north and south of the stadium, you then have the lights that we added for each shot on a case-by-case basis. Even with the bounce off of the ice, and those lights, you still had some pretty complex shadows on the faces to match. We gathered HDRI reference for every shot so our animators could match the on-set lighting quiet easily. If anything, I think replacing faces on strongly lit subjects would be easier, as your brain sees the higher contrast and for one reason or another accepts it as real a lot easier than if it sees a subtle difference in shades on a more low-contrast subject. As with most of these things, it's probably a throwback to when we would need to identify a well-hidden predator that is creeping up on us. Sheer survival instincts have made doing visual effects all the more difficult!

As for the hair, we developed a few good techniques for extracting the detail from the doubles head through a combinationn of roto and difference keying. We did a lot of both!

Posted by Mark Breakspear on Saturday, April 14, 2007 @ 07:14 PM

its good, but the face replacement its need a real touch of
naturalism for lighting and color scheme.

Posted by jojiemcasiao on Sunday, May 20, 2007 @ 08:35 AM

Dear Sir/Madam
I am wondering whether you have any video software that enables the user to change the face of actors with anothers faces of my choice

Posted by CHADI on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 @ 03:11 PM

It's OK for safety reasons, and just to get the job done on some shots.
But you can't have everything just becoming fake, like doubles who walk, stand, move or dance with more poise than the actor. Performance is a part of the aura of some movies, like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies.
Audiences should expect and demand real performance where it matters.

Posted by PT on Thursday, March 12, 2009 @ 03:38 PM