Ok, so who played Gears of War and thought to themselves “wow I really had trouble identifying with that Marcus Fenix dude UNTIL I realized he has neck acne”? Apparently the minds behind this new stunning  facial modeling technology known as Separable Subsurface Scattering (SSS) did, given how they explain finding the inspiration for their research in the imperfections of human skin. Researcher Jorge Jimenez explains his fascination with human skin in a blog post unveiling his new work:  

I think there is still a lot work to do. Probably the most important one will be rendering realistic facial hair. It will be my dream if my skin research helps to improve the rendering of humans in games; I truly believe that more realistic characters will inevitably lead to deeper storytelling, and more emotionally-driven games.

Perhaps more importantly for us over at Kill Screen, however, is the fact the new technology was designed specifically for videogames. That could mean less fumbling with cinematic special effects as gamers and developers move into a new generation of consoles. 

–Yannick LeJacq

[via RPS]