3D Facial Animation- Recreating human heads with virtual skin, bones, and muscles

The creation of computer-animated human faces is a long-standing andchallenging problem since the early 1970s. There are numerous approachesto facial animation, but to this day no general-purpose system exists thatsolves the problem in a manner satisfying the needs of all practicalapplications. An obvious approach to achieve generality is the simulation ofthe inner workings of a real face. The ultimate goal is to have the full range ofconformation and expressiveness in the face emerge "naturally" throughprecise modeling of the anatomical structure and accurate simulation oftissue properties. This has so far only been realized in parts, and no currentimplementation catches all the intricacies of the human face. This textdescribes an approach for building and animating virtual head models withanatomical structure, animated in a physics-based manner by use of musclecontractions that in turn cause skin deformations.