The mouth doesn’t quite do what a mouth should do.

Parts of the video are the distractions - the kind of smoke and mirrors that magicians use to create the illusion. It kind of cheapens what they’re trying to do.

The video at their site was interesting, but it was not as effective - looked more like Shrek movements.

Maybe another look is warranted?

http://www.image-metrics.com/

Take a look at that one. For something that is a rendering based on video recordings rather than motion capture… it’s actually quite stunning.

The big giveaways tend to be the lack of frown lines/wrinkles and such, but it’s still impressive given the lack of super expensive equipment used in the process.

We’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go.

Right now it might be okay for people chatting in the background of a movie scene, like a crowded cafe. They’re still essentially mo-capping the body movements, though.

the eyes were weird, yes. if you’re a gamer, this video gives you chills. i don’t know where you guys are getting that this was anything but from-scratch animation. regardless of whether they used an actual actress or not, it’s still REALLY neato, wouldn’t you say? it just presents so much opportunity for future gaming, and ooohhh it’s pretty. GTA5 is going to be absolutely breathtaking.

Now animate something completely from scratch and we’ll talk. Otherwise this is much ado about nothing.

And as for everyone who thinks actors / actresses / thespians of all stripes are headed the way of the dodo - show me an engineer who can emote. Let’s not confuse bombastic action set-pieces as “acting.”

This is performance capture, NOT animation.

This is also an internet sized video that’s been compressed back to creation. If this were HD video, or worse yet on a film screen, I think you would be even more creeped out.

And the question of ‘Why’ has always been out there. While it definitely could do wonders for gaming, it seems akin to the building of the atomic bomb in terms of ‘the wrong hands’. The wrong hands being resurrecting dead actors and making them do horrible things. I’d hate to think of this being common place enough that the ‘people’ who make those ‘Meet The Spartans’ movies could get their hands on it. Talk about a dirty bomb.

They tape a real actress doing those same exact movements and facial expressions and then they take the video and draw over it with the computer to make it look animated.

Why not just stick with the original?

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t awesome! At the rate we’re going, the kinks will be gone in the next few ‘versions’ of Emily!