Optimizing facial animation parameters for MPEG-4

This paper presents a method for automatic optimization of FAPs (facial animation parameters) based on a face video sequence. An FAP optimizer unit compares a rendered face with the original face in the video sequence. The difference is iteratively minimized to produce an optimal set of FAPs. Unnecessary FAPs are eliminated and the search is partitioned to speed up the optimization process. Three different search techniques, steepest descent method, linear search method, and cyclic coordinates method are applied to derive an optimum. The FAPs are very accurate and the animation based on the FAPs is lifelike and truthful to the original video.