In gaming, 3D graphics get more powerful, environments get more expansive, enemies get more intelligent, but still facial animations haven’t progressed much since Pac-Man chomped his first power pellet in 1980. Finally, a major breakthrough courtesy of Australian company Depth Analysis. It has developed technology called MotionScan, which enables a high-res 3D recreation of a person’s face — not just capturing bits and pieces of facial animation but their entire head, right down to the hairstyle. It’s getting its first use in next year’s L.A. Noire , a 1940s PS3 and Xbox 360 murder mystery game from Rockstar , and while we don’t know enough about the title to be able to say whether it’s worth plunking down a pre-order now, after watching the video embedded below it’s clear that the bar has been raised. Continue reading L.A. Noire’s amazing MotionScan facial capture system demonstrated (video) L.A. Noire’s amazing MotionScan facial capture system demonstrated (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink