Lessons from the evolution of an anatomical facial muscle model

Recently, Industrial Light & Magic has begun exploring facial muscle simulation as a means of augmenting our blendshape-based facial animation workflow in order to attain higher quality results. During this process, we discovered that a precise and accurate model of the underlying facial anatomy is key to obtaining high-quality facial simulation results that can be used for photorealistic hero characters. We present an overview of our workflow for developing such a model along with some of the key anatomical lessons that were essential to the process.