Aether Saga

Aether Saga

Aether Saga is a 90-second, CG animation produced by the boutique creative studio noOne. Designed as a proof-of-concept for a future animated series, the short film portrays a conversation between two characters as they interact within a fantasy setting. noOne utilized our facial capture technology and service to faithfully capture the facial performances of two actors, using that data to drive the final animation.

Delivering realistic facial animation

Emotion and dialogue are key aspects of the film’s narrative and noOne needed to ensure the character animation was both realistic and immersive. By using our facial capture technology, the studio was able to produce authentic digital doubles of the two actors, driving the animation with real performances.

Our advanced machine learning pipeline, PURE4D, faithfully reproduced the likeness and performance of the female character, Holda. We achieved this by combining performance data from our HMC with high-fidelity data from our DI4D PRO system. It’s the same pipeline and approach used to drive the facial animation in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and F1 23.

For the second character, Einar, our HMC was used to capture and deliver the final facial performance.

Watch noOne studio’s full breakdown below.