Singapore-born pop star JJ Lin (林俊傑) stopped by Next Media Animation’s studio in Taipei last week to get a full facial scan using the newest Light Stage X system. Lin, who speaks Mandarin, English, Hokkien and Cantonese, has fans in all regions of the Chinese-speaking world, including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. Based in Taipei, he was here to prepare videos for his upcoming world tour.
Light Stage X at the NMA studio is one of a kind. Developed by the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at University of Southern California (USC), the system is the newest model designed to capture facial scans and render them for characterization in animations. Previous models, which vary in size and capabilities, have been used to film the movies Spiderman, King Kong, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Avatar and more.
The system includes a computer set connected to a sphere that measures 2.5-meter wide and tall. There are 331 light units connected to the computer, each composed of 12 LED light sources. That’s 3,972 LED lights. 4 sets of scans are recorded during each session. Each set of scan consists of 4 seconds of sitting very still, while 2 cameras take 15 consecutive scans of the face. Characterization models that result from this can look so realistic it’s difficult to tell the difference.
“JJ Lin is the world’s first Chinese-speaker to use Light Stage,” he proudly proclaimed, speaking about himself in the third-person.
Read about our other cool gadget, facial motion capture, here.
