This actually broke over the summer but apparently I never covered it here. Over in Japan there was a huge splash over a new TV star named “Aimi Eguchi”, appearing in a few commercials and TV ads. Later, it was found that the girl was actually a CG-construction, a composite of the faces of the 6 members of the popular japanese pop band “AKB48”.
Confectionery company Ezaki Glico Co., which features the character named Aimi Eguchi along with a few other AKB48 members in the commercial for its Ice no Mi (Fruit of Ice) product, confirmed Monday that she is a composite image of six members of the group.
The six members are Atsuko Maeda (eyes), Tomomi Itano (nose), Yuko Oshima (hairstyle), Mariko Shinoda (mouth), Minami Takahashi (face outline), and Mayu Watanabe (eyebrows), according to a TV ad by Glico.
It looks like they made heavy use of both modern 3D and traditional 2D compositing techniques, combining tricks like Facial Tracking for 3d mesh blending along with outline and image morphing.
Watch the video below for a quick overview of what they did.
Reminds me of the movie Sim0ne
The Making of Japan virtual character AKB48’s idol “Aimi Eguchi” & Link to make your own AKB48 – YouTube.
