An MPEG-4 facial animation system driven by synthetic speech

The paper provides an overview of the activities that have led to the development of a prototype application of a "talking head" compliant with MPEG-4 specification. The work done so far fits into the context of one of the recent work-items defined by the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, known world-wide as MPEG. This ISO Working Group is now in the process of defining a unifying framework where natural and synthetic audiovisual objects can be combined and rendered as a unique combination of synchronised interactive media. The developed facial animation system implements the following features: animation of predefined/downloaded face models and animation of face models driven either by speech synthesis applications or by MPEG-4 animation parameters. To improve photo-realism, face models can be texture mapped and calibrated according to the countenances of real people.