In a recent article in Barrons, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard cites the importance of facial animation in the next generation of consoles. He argues that the new hardware will finally let developers achieve the realism required to create an emotional connection with the player.
Check out the article here:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB125150805017468583.html
It's great to see facial animation getting the attention it deserves. I'd like nothing more than for facial animation to get the attention that physics got in previous hardware cycles. Facial animation is a more difficult problem however. In addition to the graphics horse-power needed to render an advanced skin solver in real time, you still need realistic animation curves to drive the system.
So the industry is counting on all of you FaceFX animators out there...