Patent US 6,020,892

A process for real-time motion control of ultra-high quality animated faces of any kind (human, dog, fish, etc.), or control of robotic faces. The system uses common motion capture equipment to develop high and low resolution data sets of facial expressions for human actor faces (serving as the input devices). The high-resolution data is manually and semi-automatically enhanced to provide additional information pertaining to any given expression. The high-resolution expression data sets are logically linked to robotic and computer model faces of any shape for discrete control of all robotic motion controls and the creation of a high resolution data set of model expressions. Real-time low-resolution motion capture data is matched to the low-resolution data sets, and thereby matched to the enhanced high resolution model data sets. Real-time model motion and robotic motion is thus effected by the real time motion capture, though the motion is made more real and fluid by the additional pre-processed information provided in the high resolution index.