Human Face Animation using the Unreal Engine

Abstract

Many video games and 3-D movies need highly realistic human facial animation. In this project, facial animation based on Facial Action Coding System with lip-synchronization feature was created with UnrealEngine3. The face model was created in 3DSMAX with skeletal animation technique. Bones to animate the face model was added based on the real facial muscles. According to the Action Units of the FACS and the mouth position of the English pronunciation, reference poses was created as the basic facial movements to generated complex facial expressions. With the assistance of FaceFX, which was the facial animation tool of the UnrealEngine, speech animation with lip-synchronization and natural facial gesture was created and tested. Both English and Chinese speech animation was tested. The results showed that the synchronized lip movements fitted perfectly to the English speech and for Chinese speech, the lip position was not correct when pronouncing several sounds.