Summer Glau

Here's an odd thing. I added a "Summer Glau" head to the collection at relativitybook.com, and it struck me ... if anyone runs this software, their PC will be pretending to be an actress, who is pretending to be a robot, which is pretending to be a human.

You know that you've reached a certain level of technology when things start to get this complicated ...

Computer-generated 3D faces, FaceBank, FaceGen

I initially added the FaceGen page to the relativitybook.com website as a bit of fun, but it's quickly become the most popular page on the website. It seems that - strangely enough - a lot of people out there find Angelina Jolie to be rather more interesting than gravitomagnetic field theory.

So I've spent some time adding more sample 3D faces. There are now more than fifty of them, and I've put up a separate "face bank" page for browsing them, http://www.relativitybook.com/CoolStuff/facebank.html . There's also some jerky video on the ErkDemon YouTube channel.

Some of the sharper-eyed visitors will have noticed that apart from Albert Einstein and Barack Obama, all the faces are female. Personal preference. I suppose that I really ought to grudgingly do a few more male faces at some point, just to make thing look more balanced. One or two. Maybe.

If anyone wants to leave any feedback or comments, you can do it here, on this blog page.

Now, see if you can work out which slider to move to make Barack Obama's ears waggle ...