Multi-level Performance-driven Stylised Facial Animation

In this paper, our objective is to assist a graphical artist throughout the creation of stylised facial animations that exhibit characters with a handdrawn look and resemble real life without mimicking it. To this end, we present a hybrid approach combining benefits from performancedriven facial animation and user-controlled 2D modelling and animation techniques. Once we capture the movement and timing of facial components, ‘multi-level facial motion descriptors’ are extracted according to MPEG-4 characterisation. Within the animation system these motion descriptors are mapped onto a set of artistdrawn facial channels where the parameters for each channel control the degree of caricature applied to the movement allowing flexible caricaturing from a single set of movement data.