A small Keio University group has developed a rather interesting method of tracking people’s facial movements in real time, using nothing more than a standard PC and a USB Camera. That’s right, no specialized hardware is needed for this to work. The method in which it works is pretty simple. The software locates several key points of a persons face, and then also locates the border of the face to allow it to detect the orientation of the head, as well as lip and eye movements.
In this demonstration video, you can see them testing the software with what clearly seems to be MikuMikuDance. They plan to develop the software so that it can be used by CG animation hobbyists as well as game developers. You can pretty much imagine this as something like Kinect, but for your face instead of your body. Using both of them combined could allow for pretty realistic model movements.
Any news on availability of the software is not yet known.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvievLytmrs]
About jrharbort
A Hatsune Miku fan since December 2007, jrharbort joined MikuFan as the Head Writer in October 2011. Follow on Twitter at @jrharbort.