GLASGOW, SCOTLAND — Dimensional Imaging Ltd (www.di4d.com), a facial capture company, provided high-quality facial animation for a key scene in Alcon Entertainment’s Blade Runner 2049 movie. The company’s DI4D PRO System was used to capture actresses Sean Young and Loren Peta on-location in Budapest. Sean Young played replicant ‘Rachael’ in the original 1982
Blade Runnermovie and Loren Peta took over the character in the new movie. Without the use of any markers, or makeup, DI4D captured and tracked Loren’s facial performance, delivering highly realistic facial animation for the scene.
“We were delighted to be given the opportunity to work on Blade Runner 2029,” says Douglas Green, COO of DI4D. “When we were asked to capture the facial performances for this key scene, we knew that our system could deliver the highest possible fidelity of data that the VFX production team required. Being able to capture every nuance of Loren’s facial performance was crucial for this particular scene. We tracked her facial performance using a 7,400 vert mesh - the densest mesh that DI4D have tracked to date. We subsequently increased the resolution of the tracked data to approximately 30,000 verts. This resulted in the delivery of highly realistic facial animation for this pivotal scene.”
“Quality data capture, especially for facial performances, is an integral part of producing digital humans,” notes Richard Clegg, VFX supervisor at MPC. “Dimensional Imaging (DI4D) came through for us with Rachael on Blade Runner 2049. Their team was highly professional and very accommodating.”
DI4D solutions are used for facial performance capture for visual effects in movies, video games and virtual reality, and for advanced clinical and other scientific research applications.