A 3D project which pays people for their faces to be scanned for use in video games is closing the doors on its Sheffield centre.
For the last year, Orchid Square has been home to the Sapiens project but it is set to close for good on 27 March.
The project was Ten 24’s studio’s ambitious new venture, aiming to shape a more inclusive digital future through participation in their ground breaking 3D scanning project.
By taking part, members of the public take part in a 10-minute scan and receive £40 cash in hand.
Ty Harper, the Sapiens project studio head, said: “We wanted a big data set – something that’s never been done in the history of this, so we decided to put together the scanning rig.”
The studio made the decision to open it up to the public, and in one year hoped to scan 10,000 faces of the Sheffield people.
Mr Harper said: “Usually we pay for models, so it’s something that we’ve kind of done on a much wider scale, just to make things a lot more varied”.
The Sapiens project will be closing later this month as it was always designed as a time-limited data collection initiative with a specific target.
Its founder, James Busby has said that AI is coming for video game character creation. Faces are complex and need a lot of real ones to train on, but once it has them, there’ll be no need to take hyper-realistic photos.
The project received almost £350,000 from the government to set up shop allowing for 16k images through their photogrammetry rig.
Mr Harper explained that each file for one person contains about 30 gigs which is then input into a software called ‘reality capture’.
By taking part, your face could appear in an AAA game, notable mentions include ‘Final Fantasy, Hellblade, Halo and Baldur’s Gate 3’.
For your last chance to book a spot and other information about the project, you can find out more here
