Facial expression animation overview

Abstract

This paper reviews the main approaches to the human facial expression animation used in computer science and robotics. They rely on one-dimensional pictures or video sequences which describe the human face in different emotional states. The synthesis of various expressions is achieved by manipulations of the geometry of the three-dimensional object which result in the surface of the object being deformed. As it is presented in the paper the face is a specific carrier of information and as a strong visual stimulus it attracts most of the attention during the conversation and thus the facial expression is an easily accessible and credible transmitter of emotional states of the man, see Thomaz et al. [2008]. Research in the field of the human facial expressions, including search of factors that affect the emotional states interpretation has contributed to the improvement of the communication between people and machines. In the section 4 main techniques of various approaches are compared from the point of view of efficiency, applicability, complexity etc.