DI4D announces PURE4D 2.0 – refined facial animation for digital doubles

DI4D :

Glasgow, March 2024 – DI4D, the leading independent facial capture and animation provider, has announced PURE4D 2.0, the latest iteration of its proprietary facial performance capture solution. PURE4D consistently delivers the highest level of fidelity and realism for the world’s biggest video game titles. It has been used to produce hours of facial animation for leading triple-A franchises, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 & 3 and F1® 21 & 23. PURE4D 2.0 faithfully delivers even more detail than before.   
The PURE4D 2.0 pipeline is purpose-built to directly translate the subtleties of an actor’s facial performance onto their digital double. It delivers nuanced facial animation without the need for manual polish or complex facial rigs. 
 
PURE4D’s unique approach to facial animation has inspired a new short film, Double, starring Neil Newbon. Newbon is widely regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished video game actors, having recently won Best Performance at the 2023 Game of the Year awards. Double will use PURE4D 2.0 to capture the nuance of Neil’s performance, driving the facial animation of his digital double. Scheduled for release during the summer of 2024, Double will highlight the increasingly valuable contribution that high quality acting makes to video game production.  
 
<DOUBLE TEASER>
 
Real Acting drives authentic animation

PURE4D 2.0 is a pipeline built from DI4D’s proprietary facial capture technology. This unique approach combines performance data from a HMC (head-mounted camera) with high-fidelity data from a seated 4D capture system to achieve a scale and quality far beyond the capabilities of traditional animation pipelines. PURE4D 2.0 is compatible with the DI4D HMC and third-party dual camera HMCs, as well as the DI4D PRO and third party 4D capture systems.  
 
Behind this process is DI4D’s powerful machine learning technology, which continually learns an actor’s facial expressions, reducing subjective manual clean-up and significantly increasing both the repeatability and efficiency of the pipeline. This makes PURE4D 2.0 ideally suited to AAA video game production, allowing DI4D to deliver facial animation data at unprecedented scale and consistency.  
 
Colin Urquhart, co-founder and CEO of DI4D said, “Since launching PURE4D in 2021, we’ve delivered many hours of highest quality facial animation for leading AAA video games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3, and F1® 21 and 23. It’s production-proven at the most demanding level. PURE4D 2.0 encapsulates all the lessons we have learned, allowing us to make it even more robust and efficient, all while achieving greater levels of fidelity than before. It faithfully delivers even more of the nuance of a great acting performance without requiring complex rigs or any of the usual animation polish.” 
 
Faithfully recreating an actor’s facial performance is key to PURE4D 2.0’s approach, making it possible to emulate the experience of watching an actor in a live-action film or theatrical performance using their digital double. 
 
A digital double refers to an animated character that shares the exact likeness and performance of a single actor, resulting in highly realistic, performance-driven facial animation. It’s a process that preserves the artform of acting while enhancing the believability of the character – a quality celebrated in the upcoming short film, Double.  
 
Douglas Green, co-founder and COO of DI4D adds, “Double will showcase PURE4D 2.0’s incredible ability to faithfully capture and recreate the emotional range and depth of an actor’s performance. Neil Newbon’s tremendous skill and experience as a professional actor allows us to exhibit the full capabilities of our technology. We’re very excited to see how we can apply this experience to better serve our clients.” 
 
DI4D will be exhibiting at this year’s GDC in San Francisco at booth S669. To find out more about PURE4D 2.0, or to book a meeting with DI4D at GDC, you can contact a member of the team here. 
 
BOILERPLATE: 
 
DI4D delivers performance-driven facial animation services for the world’s biggest video games and blockbuster movies, bringing life to authentic digital doubles. With over 20 years of unrivaled client service, DI4D has developed its own proprietary technology, including the DI4D PRO system, DI4D HMC, and machine learning pipeline, PURE4D, to reach an unprecedented level of fidelity. DI4D has provided facial animation services for projects including Blade Runner 2049, Haunted Mansion, the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare trilogy and F1 21 and F1 23.