Avid's debuted some pretty impressive looking 3D tools for lifelike, emotional digital animation for high-end film, post and games. Dubbed Face Robot, it apparently " uses a groundbreaking new computer model of the soft tissue of the face to mimic the full range of human emotion" - this new model circumvents having to create hundreds of individual shapes to achieve the same effect. Face Robot also offers the standard keyframe and motion capture tools, and users have control over the smallest of details, such as wrinkles, frowns, flaring nostrils and bulging neck muscles.

There are FAQ's and tech briefs available, containing a lot of juicy in-depth info, but alas: no solid availablility in sight. So for now, all you get to drool over is the technology preview and their gallery.

[via creativepro]