Avatar Kinect, your not-quite-creepy smirking, winking virtual self, is launching today in Kinect Fun Labs. It tracks your eyebrows, mouth, and other points on your face to translate your real-world expressions into their polygonal equivalent. This is how it works.
The Kinect sensor doesn't provide quite enough fidelity to say, actually match your blinks to the ones onscreen—they're randomly generated—but larger facial movements like arched eyebrows and gaping maws, it nails more often than not. Interestingly, it's the inaccuracy that makes Avatar Kinect feel more fun than weird, a game more than something truly uncanny. Of all the sets to check out, the pencil-sketched set designed by a developer's daughter is perhaps the most enchanting.
Video by Michael Werner, Editing by Woody Jang