**Pioneering Digital Humans**
Although Digital Domainâ??s history is deeply connected to traditional visual effects, it has quickly become the worldâ??s leading expert on the creation and development of digital, virtual and autonomous humans. Spearheaded by its pioneering Digital Human Group, the studio has come a long way since 2008â??s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the highly publicized creation of the 2012 Tupac hologram for Coachella.
In February 2021, Digital Domainâ??s DHG and New Media groups partnered with the NFL and famed advertising company 72andSunny to create a 3D model, virtual human and hologram version of the legendary â?? and deceased â?? coach Vince Lombardi. Created with the blessing of his estate, Digital Domain used existing reference material, including black & white SD footage, to create a digital facsimile of the coach. A performer with roughly the same build and mannerisms was then brought in to record the movements, and Digital Domainâ??s proprietary tools swapped the performerâ??s face for the photorealistic, CG face of Lombardi. The coach then gave the assembled fans present for Super Bowl LV, along with the millions of fans watching around the world, an original message of hope and unity.
The work on Lombardi was created thanks to recent advancements in facial capture and face swapping pioneered by Digital Domain. Aspects of the same technology also helped to create a digital duplicate of Dr. Martin Luther King reciting his iconic â??I Have a Dreamâ? speech, add decades to David Beckham for an international ad campaign designed to appeal to the world to make â??Malaria No Moreâ? and helped earn Digital Domain an Oscar nomination in 2019 for Ready Player One.
New Tools
For both its VFX and digital humans work, Digital Domain has also created several industry-leading tools, like the award-winning Masquerade 2.0, an evolution of the tech that made Thanos possible in the Avengers films. Masquerade offers the most emotive and photorealistic CG faces on the market.
Joining it is Charlatan, a neural network-powered facial capture tool that is poised to become the industry standard for face swapping and aging/de-aging performers. Charlatan gives filmmakers and character creators in any field the flexibility to take the performance of a real person and analyze the facial mannerisms and nuance in their performance, then create an original, photoreal CG version of that person. That CG face can then be transposed and augmented onto the face of an existing live-action performance, or a CG avatar. *â??Momentumâ? is a new software tool created using the proprietary Charlatan tech. The Momentum Live system takes it one step further, and allows for face swapping in real time.*
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/03/25/2410523/0/en/The-Road-to-the-Oscars-Digital-Domain-Recounts-a-Groundbreaking-Year-for-the-Legendary-VFX-Studio.html