The human face can display an incredibly complex and subtle range of emotions, which is great for most of us -- and a giant pain for devs who are trying to portray realistic facial animation in their games.

At GDC 2014, Sucker Punch's Spencer Alexander gave a great hour-long talk that delved deep into how the studio managed to create the remarkably lifelike facial animations at play in Infamous: Second Son. 

It was an intriguing look at how the studio captured the performnces of live studio actors, then retargeted and carried them over to the game characters for real-time in-engine playback. He discussed the technical details and decisions that were made to meet performance demands at a reasonable cost, and showcased the studio's facial performance pipeline to offer details into the capture process, facial rig setup and workflows that were key to success.

Alexander's talk is still an insightful watch today, so if you didn't get a chance to see him speak at GDC a few years back, set aside some time to take advantage of the fact that you can now watch the full talk for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

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