Home Gaming Get next-gen facial rendering tech right now

Get next-gen facial rendering tech right now

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DigitalIra

Even if you don’t explicitly know the name, you’ve probably seen “Digital Ira” once or twice before. He’s the bald guy that keeps popping up in all of those incredibly impressive “next-gen” facial rendering demoes.

And now, you get to render Digital Ira on your own PC, provided you’re packing the requisite hardware. Nvidia recommends a GTX 670 or higher – though it will chug along on slower and older cards, provided they’re CUDA capable, DirectX 11 devices (so pretty much a 400-series or higher). You can download the 309MB tech demo directly from NVIDIA.

Nvidia says it was all done using a new, state-of-the-art method of performance capture, using a light stage instead of the traditional mesh of balls superglued to an actor’s face.

“This demonstration highlights the state of the art in performance capture. All Ira”s motions were acted out in a "light stage" at the Institute for Creative Technology at USC,” says Nvidia.  “The team there headed by Dr. Paul Debevec is able to photographically capture facial geometry, surface detail, and lighting information of an actor without any of the traditional tricks of face markers or special makeup.”

“This light stage data is pulled into NVIDIA”s demo engine, and using FaceWorks rendering technology we witness a realism of human facial rendering never before seen in real time. FaceWorks shading gives Ira lifelike skin, eyes, lips and teeth. Adaptive tessellation keeps the curves of his face perfectly smooth.”

Give it a bash, and let us know how well Digital Ira works for you. It’s still probably quite a while before we see facial rendering of this calibre in actual games. In fact, we’re still waiting for games to look like the tech demoes from 10 years ago – but it’ll come. One day.

And so will Darryn. One day.

Last Updated: May 13, 2013

37 Comments

  1. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    May 13, 2013 at 13:43

    I shall test this on my GTX560Ti tonight. If it burns it out I will hold you responsible Geoff…… 😛

    Reply

    • ALKi1234

      May 14, 2013 at 08:40

      And…?

      Reply

      • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

        May 14, 2013 at 08:50

        To give some perspective my stats:
        i7-2600 Sandy Bridge
        4GB Dual channel gaming paired corsair XMS 1600 Ram (2x2GB)
        Leadtek GTX 560Ti.

        When I loaded up the program my PC hung. But not a normal hang where it stops responding. Oh no. It was responding. Just ultra sluggish My mouse could move (Barely) and ctrl+alt+del took 5minutes to show the options menu for what I want to do. Task manager took another 10minutes to load after that.

        According to MSI Afterburner’s onscreen FPS counter it was running at 0FPS. But in all fairness to be more accurate it was 1Frame per 2minutes or so.

        Exceptional detail. But I couldn’t run the program (This was at 1080). I am going to attempt tonight with a lower res but I do not have high hopes that it will run any better or be any less resource intense.

        Reply

        • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

          May 14, 2013 at 08:58

          Yeah, it’s quite a resource killer.

          Reply

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            May 14, 2013 at 09:18

            Yeah, I don’t see this kind of tech getting implemented in games any time soon. Not until computing power catches up a bit.

        • ALKi1234

          May 14, 2013 at 09:28

          So it’s safe to say i shouldn’t even attempt it.

          Reply

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            May 14, 2013 at 09:32

            Lol

  2. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    May 13, 2013 at 13:43

    I shall test this on my GTX560Ti tonight. If it burns it out I will hold you responsible Geoff…… 😛

    Reply

  3. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    May 13, 2013 at 13:43

    I shall test this on my GTX560Ti tonight. If it burns it out I will hold you responsible Geoff…… 😛

    Reply

  4. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    May 13, 2013 at 13:43

    I shall test this on my GTX560Ti tonight. If it burns it out I will hold you responsible Geoff…… 😛

    Reply

  5. Darryn Cameron-Gunn

    May 13, 2013 at 13:48

    says page not found :p

    Reply

  6. Andre116

    May 13, 2013 at 13:51

    “facial rendering tech”. Don’t they already use that in the porn industry?

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Combat Engineer

      May 13, 2013 at 13:59

      Disqualified!

      Reply

      • Andre116

        May 13, 2013 at 14:01

        Sigh…if you say so.

        *picks up bag and slowly walks out the room with head held low*

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Combat Engineer

          May 13, 2013 at 14:03

          Ok, just becoz I’m feeling generous, you can stay in, your strikes are up, but watch the trolling. The achievement will be worth it!

          Reply

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            May 13, 2013 at 14:10

            So this is like Survivor then? Can we find immunity idols and such to pull out whenever we get caught?

          • Admiral Chief Combat Engineer

            May 13, 2013 at 14:17

            I’ll think about it, but these immunity (I refuse to use that word you said) devices will have to be earned.

            I’ll be posting up my bank details later, if the donation is sufficient, you can have immunity device, single use.

            joke aside, sounds like a good idea, but rather not.

          • Brady miaau

            May 13, 2013 at 15:20

            Sounds like a good idea, but rather not?

            🙂 ok, that was trolling.

  7. Admiral Chief Combat Engineer

    May 13, 2013 at 14:00

    Is there an AMD requirement?

    Reply

    • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

      May 13, 2013 at 14:03

      Not having a kak video card. 😛
      AMD does Hair, Nvidia does faces. 😉

      Reply

      • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

        May 13, 2013 at 14:11

        Hahaha. Nice. Does this mean that you fail the no trolling achievement for the end of the week?

        Reply

        • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

          May 13, 2013 at 14:12

          i’m not trolling. I’m just telling the truth. 😛

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief Combat Engineer

            May 13, 2013 at 14:14

            You just used up your practise card, one more and you are out mister!

          • HvR

            May 13, 2013 at 14:47

            The fine line between truth and troll

          • Deon Steyn

            May 13, 2013 at 15:14

            Both seems to hurt.

          • Deon Steyn

            May 13, 2013 at 15:14

            Both seems to hurt.

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            May 13, 2013 at 14:15

            Hahahahaha

      • CrasH

        May 13, 2013 at 15:28

        So nvidia does face abd AMD does bush?

        Could not resist…. sorry

        Reply

      • FoxOneZA - X-Therminator

        May 13, 2013 at 15:43

        That explains why the dude has no hair on his head!

        Reply

      • Uberutang

        May 14, 2013 at 10:40

        Porn does both…

        Reply

  8. Ultimo_Cleric_N7

    May 13, 2013 at 14:08

    “And so will Darryn. One day.”

    Geoff you troll. X-D

    Reply

  9. Brady miaau

    May 13, 2013 at 15:19

    L.A. Noir needed this

    Reply

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