
Video game facial animation has come a long way, from the first twitch of Mario's moustache to the near-Hollywood production levels of titles like Grand Theft Auto and Halo . Today's characters can emote with a visual fidelity that has entered the realm of realism.
But dramatic impact isn't just the domain of narrative-led action titles. A sense of believability is also key to the next generation of sports games - games like NBA 2K. Not only must these games accurately reflect the strategy and physicality of the sport they emulate, but also the intensity, passion, and the all-out drama experienced by the players.
I've been working on the NBA series for six years now, and our end goal hasn't changed in that time - we just want to get better and better at selling the emotion of basketball, says Anthony Tominia, performance-capture stage manager at 2K. We're working on 2K16 now, and we want everything to be as realistic as it possibly can be. That means everything from mocap'ing the basketball itself to realistically representing the real-life players in digital form.
This year, we're trying to get more expressive emotions; better-looking lip sync in our story mode; distinct reactions that mirror what happens on the actual court - Faceware Technologies is an important contributing factor to all of that.
Capturing Every Wrinkle
2K has used Faceware's hardware and software solutions for it facial performance capture for many years, and utilized them once again to bring NBA 2K16 to life. For Tominia, the technology was nothing less than integral in capturing the raw kinetic energy of the sport.
Basketball is a story, and emotion helps you to tell that story, he says on his team's approach to NBA 2K16. Those physical facial expressions add to the drama of the game. The player might get irritated if they miss a shot, or reach for the skies when they make that last-minute alley-oop, and seeing that makes your actions all the more engaging. We really wanted to delve deeper into those little narrative movements this time and sell what's happening on an emotional level.
So, in 2K16 we've really exploited our rigs to the extreme so we can match every nuance of the person, continues Tominia. We're making sure that not only does each digital character look like their real-life counterpart, but they also show the signature emotion of that person. When you look at Shaquille O'Neal this year, it's not just a representation of him - it has every tic, every subtle nuance that makes his face uniquely O'Neal.' It's not just a celebratory face, it's Shaq's celebratory face, based off his real-life performance.
Custom Software
Faceware's technology was used to capture the facial performance of over 30 different NBA athletes, including O'Neal. Actions both on the court and off were recorded, with players undergoing full-performance capture for their in-game animations and also recording dialog for the My Career story mode. Once this acquisition was complete, it was time to transplant the performances into the game.
To make the next steps of the process more streamlined, the 2K team dived into the Analyzer and Retargeter scriptability.
The great thing about Faceware's script interface is that it's really simple, so we can easily develop scripts that make our job easier, explains Tominia. In this case, we wrote a bunch of Python scripts that allowed us to automatically solve everything that little bit faster. There were over 232 lines spoken by each of the 30 players, and we found that we could easily batch, through Analyzer, 232 lines per player without having to even touch the data.
We did the same thing with Retargeter, he continues. In our pipeline, the Python script does the retargeting, creates play blasts, and saves those files immediately for review. The process doesn't have to be manned, so we could capture all day, then leave the system to analyze and retarget overnight. We would then just come in the next morning and quickly identify which files needed the most touch-up, and pass those on to the team. The speed could not be better.
Speed and Power to Rival LeBron
The ease of use of the software, along with the custom development done to streamline the pipeline, meant that after analyzing and retargeting the data, cleanup time on NBA 2K's animation was down to three to four minutes per second of data.
At the end of the day, this kind of work will always rely on the touch of a human animator to flesh the capture out - that's just a matter of fact, begins Tominia. However, in our line of work, we want to get as far into the pipeline as we can before a human has to touch that data, and Faceware delivers excellent results in that regard. Four minutes per second wasnt really that much time, because there was nobody touching the file until that point, and that's a huge advantage in a production such as this.
Combined with the raw power of Faceware's solutions, this speed makes for a particularly lethal combination. Last year for NBA 2K, we recorded 120 hours of facial animation - that's massive amounts of data, says Tominia. In comparison, most feature films are two hours long and have a maximum of three CG characters on screen at any time, so that's just six hours. But we did 20 times that in the space of a year.
When you put that into context, it's insane, he marvels. A keyframe animator might be able to give you five minutes of animation a day, and that's pushing it. That would take one animator nearly four years of nonstop work to achieve, and if you're paying them $30 an hour, it's going to total up to an incredible amount. Really, there's no number of animators on the planet that could be assembled to put out 120
Most recent headlines
13/03/2025
WASHINGTON FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the agency has launched a massive, new deregulatory initiative that could potentially subject virtually all ...
13/03/2025
SUNNYVALE, Calif. SDVI has announced that it has integrated its Rally media supply chain management platform with the Spectra Vail multi-cloud data management s...
13/03/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver of its local ownership rules to permit Gray Media to acqu...
13/03/2025
TV Tech: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2025 NAB Show?...
13/03/2025
Watch Student Naomi Soleils Folk Pop Performance on The Voice The songwriting major sang Stars by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals during the blind auditions.
...
12/03/2025
O Spotify acaba de lan ar o relat rio Loud & Clear deste ano, uma vis o transpar...
12/03/2025
Spotify acaba de presentar el informe Loud & Clear de este a o, una mirada trans...
12/03/2025
Ramadan, a period of profound spiritual significance for Muslims worldwide, is a time for fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Enrich your experience thi...
12/03/2025
Spotify has just unveiled this year's Loud & Clear report, a transparent loo...
12/03/2025
More than 70% of FAST programming has been produced since 2010, according to new Gracenote report
NEW YORK March 12, 2025 Gracenote, the content data busin...
12/03/2025
GEONA, Nev. Independent digital and linear advertising rep firm Viamedia will adopt cloud-based ShowSeeker Pilot as its primary ad campaign and order management...
12/03/2025
BRUSSELS Mediagenix has announced that Wael Yasin has joined the company as sales director Central Europe....
12/03/2025
LONDON A new study highlights opportunities for shoppable TV and the massive impact online consumer spending is having on the economy, with Omdia predicting tha...
12/03/2025
CUPERTINO, Calif. Interra Systems has announced that Comcast Technology Solutions has integrated recent updates to BATON Version 9 into its operations....
12/03/2025
Nevion announces new 400G addition to its eMerge SDN media fabric offering
Brie Clayton March 12, 2025
0 Comments
High-capacity switch enhances existi...
12/03/2025
DaVinci Resolve Studio Delivers Cinematic Sound for Adam Bol
Brie Clayton March 12, 2025
0 Comments
Feature film relies on DaVinci Resolve Studio for ...
12/03/2025
SVT Leverages Ateliere Live to Pioneer 100% Software-Defined Production at Rally...
12/03/2025
Berklee Awards Fenway Neighborhood Improvement Grant to Four Organizations A total of $17,000 will be distributed among the Boston-based nonprofits.
By
Madd...
12/03/2025
TVBEuropes Jenny Priestley sits down with new SMPTE president Richard Welsh to discuss his aims for the organisation going forward, its efforts to attract a you...
12/03/2025
The new process has significantly enhanced operational efficiencies, with automation freeing up creators to concentrate on higher value tasks
By Matthew Corrig...
12/03/2025
Jellyfish Pictures, which has offices in London and Sheffield, said it has been battling hard in the face of strong headwinds over the last 12 months
By Jenny ...
12/03/2025
Visit Booth #W2213 to Experience the Latest in AI-Driven Content Discovery and Workflow Automation
Bitcentral, a leader in media workflow solutions, is set to ...
12/03/2025
CHICAGO Jeff Lilly has been named WGN-TV director of technology effective March 17, 2025, according to Ric Harris, WGN-TV vice president and general manager....
12/03/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. A new study from LG Ad Solutions indicates that consumers want more features that would allow them to shop for products on the connected T...
12/03/2025
BOTHELL, Wash. The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the Video Services Forum (VSF) will once again present...
12/03/2025
PHILADELPHIA Comcast announced that it has upgraded Xfinity Internet speeds for more than 20 million customers for no additional cost....
12/03/2025
Create with Maxon: Cinema 4D Fundamentals Workshop - March 12-14
Brie Clayton March 11, 2025
0 Comments
Makin' Waffles with Elly Wade
During Marc...
12/03/2025
Ottawa, Canada - March 12, 2025 - Ross Video is pleased to announce the appointment of Aaron Tunnell as Business Development Director, Cloud Solutions, reinforc...
12/03/2025
12 Mar 2025
VEON to release 4Q 2024 trading update on 20 March 2025 Dubai, 12 March 2025 - VEON Ltd. (NASDAQ: VEON), a global digital operator, today confirms ...
12/03/2025
Getting set for the Winter Olympics: Inside SVT's ongoing software-based pro...
12/03/2025
THE PLAYERS Championship 2025: AI Commentary, Shared-Reality Viewing at COSM, La...
12/03/2025
Seamless SMPTE 2110: A Discussion on Making the Move to IP Less Painful Leaders from Netflix, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, LinkedI, and Megapixel address ...
12/03/2025
Opening Doors of Perception: Meta's Ajit Ninan on Rethinking AR/MR Perceptua...
12/03/2025
With the 2025 Formula 1 season set to begin in Melbourne on March 16, Sky Sports is gearing up to deliver its most comprehensive F1 coverage yet. Following a th...
12/03/2025
Unicanal and Trece TV revolutionize Digital TV in Paraguay with Rohde & Schwarz ...
12/03/2025
Honoring Service, Celebrating Sport: Rohde & Schwarz UK Sponsors NavyFit Rugby D...
12/03/2025
New HVS-Q12 Represents a Quantum Leap in Switcher Design...
12/03/2025
Telespazio and ABS Expand Partnership to Deliver Tailored C-Band Connectivity So...
12/03/2025
ABC conducts independent audits across the TAG programs. In the March 2025 TAG s...
12/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Moonlight: ESA program to create a satellite con...
12/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
In 2025, Thales ranks among the top 0.01% of the...
12/03/2025
Consumer show back following hugely successful first series
10 March 2025 Following a hugely successful first series, The Complaints Bureau returns to RT ...
11/03/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
11/03/2025
Salsa is making a comeback, captivating new listeners with its infectious energy...
11/03/2025
For many people, music can serve as a reflection of their roots and upbringing. ...
11/03/2025
The solution delivers reliable, scalable and secure connectivity for critical pu...
11/03/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced that Weigel Broadcasting has deployed Harmonics VOS Media Software, which offers playout-to-delivery capabilities, inclu...
11/03/2025
NEW BERN, N.C. Wheatstone will introduce a Linux audio driver for its WheatNet IP audio network during the 2025 NAB Show, April 5-9, at the Las Vegas Convention...
11/03/2025
NEW YORK A new study finds that as TV viewership for women's sports surged by 131% in 2024, the programming also saw a 56% year-over-year increase in ad im...
11/03/2025
Powerful switcher for news studio
FOR-A, a cutting-edge video broadcast technology company backed by more than 50 years experience, has installed its HVS-1200 ...