The Eye’s Have It! Wired Interviews Paul Debevec About Realistic Virtual Actors

Wired’s Hugh Hart interviewed Paul Debevec about the future of virtual actors and the technology developments that are allowing them to be believable. “Benjamin Button and Avatar created digital characters that achieved the one thing that hadn’t happened before,” said ICT’s Debevec, in a phone interview with Wired.com. “When you look in their faces, look into their eyes, the performance that drove that character comes through in a believable way,” he said. “You can get a sense of what the character is thinking.”
Not long after winning his Scientific and Technical Academy Award for the development of the Light Stage technologies, which were used in both Avatar and Benjamin Button, Debevec took part in the South by Southwest panel titled “The Birth of Eye-Def Acting.” Debevec, was joined by Avatar animator A.J. Briones, Ubisoft’s Mathieu Ferland, Wired magazine contributing editor Clive Thompson and Advanced Micro Devices exec Neal Robison.
Read the interview here.