74 GAME ENGINES Character Creation
this through global expansion and making improvements to its technology. “There are certain steps to the character creation pipeline that are much more time-consuming than others, such as facial rigging and achieving good quality of animation from the raw mocap data,” explains Mitford. “We’re trying to find ways to automate or reduce these parts of the pipeline, without sacrificing the quality. That ’s where the technology needs to go, and that ’s what we’re always working towards.” The company is also set on promoting and educating artists about the creative potential of its technology. She explains: “You have to learn to unlearn the rules of your palette. If you think about typical content creation, you might be standing with a model and wanting to change their clothes or the colour of the background. All these things take time. It ’s physical, logistical work. However, with 3D, you can do all this and more at just the click of a mouse. It removes barriers, allowing the artists to explore more creatively.” Mitford concludes: “I like to compare the education and boom of this technology to art history and how, at some point, artists stopped trying to recreate reality and started playing with paint and splashing it or whatever. This is what we’re starting to see now. In the process of creating realism, we’re also creating incredible, artistic content. That ’s the nice thing about working with clients in music and fashion – they ’re embracing the surrealism and magical potential of 3D.”
IN THE FLESH Models make detailed scans of themselves, allowing them to send their avatar to do multiple jobs around the world
timelines can be quicker and budgets more accessible, and it gives us the capacity to work on more projects because they’re shorter,” she enthuses. With these efficient timelines, game engines are accelerating projects in sectors outside of the gaming realm, such as in the music and fashion industries. Mitford notes, however, that it is only in the last couple of years that game engines have reached a level of quality that allows them to be embraced by the fashion industry. “When you think about luxury fashion, everything has to look really appealing and beautiful. In the past, the quality of work has not been good enough for this industry, but now we’re literally building fashion campaigns and films out of the engines.” There are concerns from people in the industry who are worried these 3D models could replace the live ones. But this is not the first time technology and fashion have collided. Remember when Alexander McQueen reintroduced a scandalised Kate Moss back into the fashion world via a hologram on the catwalk? It’s possible that
CGI could be a massive benefit to real-life models, offering them the opportunity to make detailed scans of themselves. “You can hire a model to be the face of your brand and retain their avatar for years to come. Their avatar can be sent on multiple jobs around the world without the model actually being there in the flesh,” says Mitford. “Once someone is scanned, they are immortalised. Their career could last decades, centuries.” Of course, there are plenty of ethical questions that come up. For example, whose intellectual property are these scans? The person being scanned? Or the company producing it? But Mimic believes there is nothing for humans to worry about. “With development of this technology will come greater understanding of how to license data securely.” THE FUTURE IS 3D Mimic Productions has set out a five- year plan, with the goal of becoming the leading vendor in creating realistic 3D models. The company hopes to achieve
ONCE SOMEONE IS SCANNED, THEY ARE IMMORTALISED. THEIR CAREER COULD LAST DECADES, CENTURIES
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