IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON, LONDON, UK. A new technique to make Computer generated imagery (CGI) faces look even more realistic has been developed by a group of experts in the field. With the current CGI method being used to create faces, one can easily tell that it is nothing more than just animation. In fact, it gives you that creepy wax-looking feel just looking at CGI faces because their skin is just too perfect. Not to mention their lifeless facial expressions which are far from the real thing.

With the new method developed for CGI faces, you won’t be able to easily see tell if it’s real or not. It is because of the realistic illumination on the face which gives an ultra-realistic skin simulation. Of course, to make it look even more realistic, the developers made sure that they go down to the smallest facial details such as blemishes, pores, wrinkles, shadows and even bumps.

To make it happen, the group uses a special camera and lighting system. Every simulated light source is then split into four rays. Three rays penetrate the skin to different depths before being scattered while one ray is made to bounce off the epidermis. They also used a special scanner to take high-resolution images of human skin from volunteers’ cheeks, chins, and foreheads to use for various projects. The detailed scanned images of skin from the volunteers were then combined with simulated lighting technique which produced really impressive results.

The team is led by Abhijeet Ghosh of Imperial College London and Paul Debevec of the University of Southern California. They are expecting gaming and entertainment companies to show interest in their technology approach. In the future, the new method could also be useful for even more practical applications that would make a huge difference in the consumer market.