Double is a new CG short produced by the facial capture company
DI4D. The film harnesses its latest PURE4D 2.0 solution to faithfully transfer Neil Newbon’s facial performance onto his digital double. PURE4D is an innovative approach to facial animation that is entirely performance driven. It can produce realistic facial animation without requiring a traditional facial rig but can also adapt to any studio’s animation pipeline.
Double celebrates the historic art form of acting, from its most ancient roots to its most modern digital form. The faithful reproduction of Neil Newbon’s acting performance highlights the invaluable contribution skilled actors can make to video games and other animation projects.
Double is the latest film produced by DI4D, a technology company best-known for providing highly realistic facial animation for triple-A video games and blockbuster movies. Recent projects include
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III,
F1 23, and
Disney’s Haunted Mansion. DI4D created
Double to demonstrate premium caliber animation with limited time and resources.
Using PURE4D 2.0, every nuance of Neil’s performance was faithfully reproduced to deliver a level of realism approaching live action. By driving the animation directly from the facial performance, PURE4D reduces overall production costs and time by removing the hours spent adjusting traditional animation rigs. This allowed DI4D to create the entire CG short in-house.
PURE4D 2.0 achieves this feat by combining performance data from a HMC (head-mounted camera) with high-fidelity data from a seated 4D capture system. Proprietary machine learning technology learns the actor’s facial expressions, reducing subjective manual clean-up and significantly increasing consistency and efficiency.
It’s a process that allows studios to allocate more time and resources to talented acting performances.
Colin Urquhart, CEO and co-founder of DI4D said, “Double proves that it’s possible to produce high-end facial animation within a constrained budget. Acting lies at the heart of PURE4D 2.0’s approach, allowing studios to allocate more of their resources to talented performers, like Neil, who captivate audiences with their abilities. It’s this unique aspect that sets performance-driven animation apart from traditional pipelines.”
Douglas Green, COO and co-founder of DI4D adds, “Developing an entire film from conception to the final render has been an incredible opportunity for the DI4D team. Not only have we demonstrated the level of quality possible with a small team and budget, but we now have an even greater understanding of our client’s processes which can only help to improve our services further.”