FaceMaker-A procedural face generator to foster character design research

Abstract

Understanding the effect of facial features on human's perception and emotion is widely studied in different disciplines. In video games, this is especially important to improve the design of virtual characters and to understand their creation process. Virtual characters are widely used in games, virtual therapies, movie productions, and as avatars in e-commerce or in e-education. Studying the design of virtual characters is challenging as it requires to have tools at hand that enables the creation of virtual characters. Therefore, we developed a system that enables researchers to study the design process of virtual faces as well as the perception of such faces. We developed a 3D model of the Caucasian average face and implemented design parameters that can be manipulated to change the face appearance. We integrate the face creation system into a web application, which allows us to conduct studies in the large. The application has been validated through a cluster analysis of procedurally generated faces from 569 participants which created 1730 faces.