This is Emily. Emily is a 27-year-old PR rep working in Los Angeles. She likes beef jerky and has a soft spot for videogame nerds. Actually, I completely made that up. In fact, everything about Emily is a complete fabrication. This image and the following video featuring “Emily” are completely computer-generated.

The uncanny valley may soon be traversed.

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, the technology is called… actually, it appears the technology itself doesn’t really have a name. Image Metrics, however, is the company behind “the technology”. A facial motion-capture with results that rival that of Alter Ego, the big difference between the two techs being that Image Metrics doesn’t use any markers.  This is great news for mo-cap actors that don’t like sticky balls all over their faces.

Image Metrics instead captures video of the actors performing, and then “the technology” is used to convert the movement into animation while tracking things that regular mo-cap can’t, such as eyes, teeth, tongue, etc. How does it do that? Well… I have no idea.

Image Metrics’s technology has been used in Grand Theft Auto IV, Unreal Tournament III, Top Spin 3, Devil May Cry 4, and Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (among others).  You can also see it in action in the Gnarls Barkley video for “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul”.

Is it just me, or do you now have a completely different view of the California Raisins?

In addition to the lack of balls on your face, Image Metrics can supposedly use their technology to give premium results about five times faster than normal motion-capture software. They even run the animation through whichever program a developer is using for their game or video to provide seamless integration with the rest of the project.

You can check out more info or get the “company line” at the Image Metrics website, which also hosts more video examples of their tech in action.

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss Motion Capture, Drake and Sully Get Covered in Balls
• Crysis 2 Will Have Dedicated Servers – Watch Alien Motion Cap Trailer
• Super Monkey Ball Coming to 3DS
• Alter Ego’s Mind-Blowingly Realistic 3D Facial Animation (Video)