Starting with 9 randomly dispersed faces, a face is picked then moved to the center where 8 new similiar faces local to it are created, and so on depending on mutation rate and other parameters.

         I was asked by WIll Wright and Luc Barthelet of EA / Maxis to create an easy-to-use face creation tool for their new simulation game called "The Sims".
         With the help of colleague Roger Critchlow, we created "face-lift" which uses a genetic algorithm technique known as aesthetic selection to search through face space, using approximately 25 parameters to specify the genotype.
         It is a freely downloadable web tool, which allows users to create families of 3D heads for use in a popular simulation game, The Sims. In this version a menu of random faces is generated from random points in face space. By selecting one of the faces, the user is able to surf through the local region centered around the selected face and can increase or decrease the local region of similarly looking faces by the use of a mutation rate slider and other controls. In this way, novice users can “find” or breed a face or family of related faces that appeal to them for use in the game. A large web based community is currently using this system to make thousands of faces. In addition, these users have the ability to publish and trade faces on the web and even breed their creations with those of other users. Every head or family of heads becomes a local starting point or region in face space.
         What we have found is that a user will have a strong emotional response to certain faces they encounter (which appears to have cultural underpinnings) and that this emotional attachment continues as they surf that locally related face space.

How to DownLoad FaceLift

FaceLift is 8.9 MB and can be downloaded from the The Sims website. Register yourself or use my login:

http://www.thesims.com

login: facelift
passwd: facelift

click on: Get Cool Stuff

downLoad: FaceLift Gold ( 8.9 MBs)