MT35801: March 2011

Sunday, March 27, 2011

#ROLL CALL #2 CLASS #10

Roll Call 2 from Class 10, after all the YouTube videos and MP3's

Class 10 [4-5]: Synthetic Humans (cont.)

4b audio about Synthetic humans, FaceGen, etc...

FaceGen page

FaceGen samples page

Class 10 [3]: YouTube videos

<3 the Japanese, so... odd [1]

I remember when nVidia was showing her off as a tech demo... man, some of the other ones look very creepy [2]

The Emily video is really impressive, and I've definitely seen a lot of their work in the various products that use the tech [3]

Stylization works fine for me... Photo-realism is still a ways off, and often leads to awkward experiences [4]

So very creepy. If they can come up with algorithms that can't be "figured out", then maybe. We aren't there yet [5]

That's a pretty bad video. [6]

Still bad :/ [7]

It's been proven that digital idols work just fine in Japan (Hatsune Miku). I think full CG idols are a better idea than these robots though, this looks extremely awkward [8]

And so we have... Vocaloid-type singing. Yup. It's not really bad, but aside from doing high-pitched pop songs it doesn't have much variety. It's pretty impressive mapping all the sounds and such to mouth/facial movements [9]

Detail isn't really there... unless it's a ton of make-up >.>

To be fair, eyes aren't that hard to do [10]

2D Miku is still better. Robot Miku is creepy as hell [11]

Looks real enough to me [12a]

Not as impressive given how it looks, but the movement is fine [12b]

Does not look like a snake... But again, movement is okay. Looks like a water snake/fish thing [12c]

So rude! Really impressive though, especially jumping over the blue rectangle at the end [12d]

Not ~as~ impressive as BigDog, but these two do seem to have a lot of practical uses (military) [12e]

This is fake. Hair looks off, and the quality is too small to really make much out [12f]

This is also fake... Adam's apple looks strangely off [12g]

Class 10 [1-2]: Synthetic Human MP3 + EMMS

MP3 about synthetic humans, Moore's law [1a]

Mouselooking at faces [1a]

Real or Fake quiz [1b]

Render MP3, lot of LOTR talk [2a]

Article about Synthespians, severely outdated but still valid I guess [2b]

Wiki article on the uncanny valley... reminds me of Dutch "dolls", ugh [2c]

Class 9 Homework [8]: IBM Gaming Report

The article basically said that guild leaders in online games, particularly competitive and team-based games develop skills that are necessary and beneficial for use in real life situations. So what you have is a raid/guild leader giving instructions to a group of people over a VoIP program like Ventrilo, TeamSpeak or such. Everyone does need to buy into the experience, but I'm not gonna disagree with the article after playing competitively for five years now. It does make perfect sense, although how one applies what he/she learns in their time with the game is completely up to them. Sometimes, it's pointless. Other times, the guild leader or the other people in the guild are incapable of succeeding. The article does mention that failing is ~okay~ in a game... the sad part about that is, most of the time people just blame others and think they're succeeding even though they're not.

Class 9 Homework [6]: World of Warcraft Group Screenshots

We created another toon since Steph was in the human starting zone. I already hit level 6 on my Night Elf Hunter so I didn't relevel aside from helping Tyler a bit.