Daniel Thalmann & Nadia Magnenat Thalmann 
Synthetic Actors 
in Computer-Generated 3D Films

This book presents the making of computer-generated films using three-dimensional synthetic actors. It is based mainly on the production of the film Rendez-vous a Montreal, an animated film that uses advanced computer techniques to achieve such effects as reincarnating film stars Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. The main purpose of Rendez-vous a Montreal is to show that true synthetic actors can be created. This fllm represents a technological breakthrough which opens up new vistas in motion pictures, television, and advertising. With this technique, it will now be possible to produce short fllms or motion pictures featuring any celebrity in any situation. The book explains in detail how such a film can be produced using numerous drawings and color pictures. In particular, the following topics are presented: – Preparation of object construction: documentation search, and plaster models preparation – Object construction: digitizing and modeling – Body animation – Hand animation and object grasping – Facial animation: expressions, phonemes and emotions – Choreography: decors, actors, cameras, and lights – Realism: colors, lights, shading, shadows, and textures – Image recording: special effects Finally, an extensive appendix describes in detail the HUMAN FACTORY system.