Interesting information on Facial Studio, Elsa!

In the Rouse book, Chris Crawford talks about the importance of facial expressions. The following is an excerpt from that interview (see p. 285) - "The two things that we [human beings] are very good at are facial recognition and linguistic comprehension. Accordingly, those are the two things that computers should emphasize. Computer games have neither and that appalls me. Facial expression and linguistic comprehension are the two most important areas of development for the time being. Nowadays you can get excellent 3D facial models, although the expressions on them are still crappy."

How can realistic facial expressions be created on the computer? Well, that is something that the folks at the University of Pittsburg, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Salk Institute are investigating. You can read about it in the article Facial Expressions: Two computer programs 'face' off.

I also wonder if better facial expressions wouldn't make computer games more appealing for females...