A Study of Facial Tracking & Emotional Responses with Use of the eMotiv EPOC Headset

My thesis, a game demo titled “Snakebite,” covers the topic of facial animation through use of a hardware tool known as the eMotiv neuroheadset, a device that sits over an individual’s head and can read out simple thoughts and facial movement in software. The end result involves the headset used as a way to communicate facial expressions on a player’s character as they play a video game. To indicate to the player that their real facial actions perform in the game, an in-game camera records the character’s animations and generates a replay for the player to view. Since the software tool for the headset is rather new, the goal for the thesis is to be able to move a character model’s face within a motion capture program to support that the device is capable of generating quick and cost-efficient facial animations for any software engine.

