Image Metrics is a company devoted to creating extremely realistic facial animations for video games and movies. They’re pretty good at it.

In the video below, the actress’ face is entirely computer-generated until the 1:30 mark. It could be argued that the animated face looks a little stiff compared to the real thing, but it looks more like she’s had a recent botox injection than anything else.

This technology will not only make video games more realistic, it could be used to put a friendlier face on human/computer interactions. Dealing with an automated system seems much less impersonal when it’s smiling at you.

There’s another demo video on the Image Metrics home page, displaying a wider range of facial expressions. I found the animation pretty believable until she grinned. Then it kind of creeped me out.

(via The Presurfer)