How EA quickly captures 3D scans of athletes’ faces for its sports games

At the recent CES 2019 tech trade show in Las Vegas, Canon and Electronic Arts showed off how they capture 3D scans of the faces of busy athletes while they’re on the road.Every year, EA needs to capture the faces of thousands of athletes for its video games, but it’s not always easy to get them to come to EA’s Capture Lab in Vancouver, Canada. So, Nigel Nunn, head of the Capture Lab, said in an interview with GamesBeat that EA uses a mobile capture rig that has 17 Canon EOS 5D Mark IV or Canon EOS Rebel SL2 cameras on it to go where the athletes are.The high-resolution images captured can be used for games, such as FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, NBA Live, and UFC. By capturing the athlete’s face from every angle, EA can digitize the face and use it as the foundation for its animators to create the face for the character in the video game. They can stitch that face to a character for the purposes of the game. The 17-camera rig can capture faces in a few minutes.