Increases in technology for simulating realism combined with the skills and expertise of professional VFX artists have allowed for ground breaking new feats in creating virtual characters with a realistic, human-like appearance. However, this technological advance and digital craftsmanship spark the question if we can we achieve a realistic human-like character that suspends disbelief for the viewer? As well as a highly realistic graphical appearance where a virtual character may be mistaken for a human photograph, my research interests lie in creating a behavioral realism that is authentically believable. Images of human-like virtual characters may pass a Turing-Test and persuade us that they depict a human yet, once they animate and emote, they can be in danger of falling into the Uncanny Valley.

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My interest in Digital human faces has arisen through fxguide and fxphd where we have reported on the work of many people that are a part of this project for years and now also as a central part of my own personal PhD. research at Sydney University. In the simplest terms I am looking at digital faces and emotion. If we met and I offered to show you a picture of my wife, - you would expect me to show you a picture of her face. Even a poor photo of my wife smiling might cause someone to say “nice photo”. We are so obsessed by faces in our thinking and in our evolution. People will travel thousands of miles just to meet ‘face to face’, I know I do. Faces are just very different from almost anything else we model in the computer.

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