EA Files Patent For Next-Gen Facial Animations

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Electronic Arts is exploring technology that will improve facial animations and character rendering in its games, evidenced by a patent filed earlier this month with the USPTO. The last several years have seen EA-published titles further emphasize realism, specifically in projects such as recent Battlefield entries and EA Sports-branded products.

Though it may not seem at all obvious, EA in many respects has played an instrumental role with regards to the industry's advancements in animations, physics, and character rendering. Evidently, next-gen hardware from Microsoft and Sony is allowing the company's developers to push things even further in this regard. For example, the new lighting effects and hair rendering technology in FIFA 21 particularly shines on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It's apparent that EA intends to improve its tech in other ways as this generation continues to go on, as well.

On December 8 of this year, EA filed a patent with the USPTO for a "universal facial expression translation and character rendering system." The technology would result in facial animations and expressions becoming more sophisticated when translated to 3D face models. Most intriguing is that facial shapes would be "associated with a facial shape identifier," which "indicates a type of adjustment of facial characteristics." The goal is to store facial shapes in a database and link them to a specific character. From there, a character's 3D face model could be rendered with characteristics according to their specified fascial shape identifiers.

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This seems to suggest that EA's patented technology may simplify otherwise arduous processes for animators. In the possible sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, for instance, Cal's dynamic facial reactions to any particular situation during combat encounters would be stored in a database that allows for ease of implementation.

It's probably no coincidence that this is coming up on the heels of a new console generation launch. Would the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One family of systems be able to handle the data storage requirements that EA's advancements in animation and character rendering likely require? Without specifics, it seems hard to discern one way or another. But the higher specs of Microsoft's and Sony's latest hardware should manage just fine on this front, when considering how developers may put next-gen solid-state drives to use.