Hyperskin 4D
HyperSkin 4D: Next-Gen Textures
The Next Evolution in Digital Human Realism
Pushing the Boundaries of Animated Skin Textures
Hyperskin 4D is our latest leap forward in skin texturing — a next-gen solution designed to set a new benchmark for photorealistic digital humans.
This groundbreaking technology brings animated skin textures to life with an unprecedented level of detail and realism.
For this project, we worked on Mike’s data in close collaboration with Clear Angle Studios and DI4D. The result? A major step forward in facial fidelity for VFX, gaming, and virtual production. Dorothy system captures every nuance of expression with frame-accurate precision, delivering truly performance-driven animation that feels alive on screen.
Whether it’s for visual effects, real-time engines, or cinematic production, Hyperskin 4D bridges the gap between captured performances and high-resolution surface motion, bringing an unmatched level of visual fidelity to the screen.
Thanks to our advanced per-frame texturing pipeline, Hyperskin 4D enhance the subtle skin deformations that naturally occur with facial expressions, and micro-movements.
Key Innovations in This New Release
1. Refined Calibration for Lifelike Accuracy
Creating seamless animated skin textures starts with precision and that begins at the calibration stage.
Our newly developed calibration system by expressions ensures perfect sync between the facial mesh and the displacement texture data throughout the animation process capture by Clear Angle Studios.
This upgrade eliminates subtle misalignments that could otherwise break the illusion, especially in high-resolution close-ups where every detail matters. It's a crucial step toward maintaining realism, even under the closest scrutiny.
2. Superior Stabilization for Seamless Integration
Stability is crucial when working with high-resolution animated textures.
Flickering or inconsistencies in displacement or specular passes can break the immersion, even in the most detailed facial animations. Thanks to our enhanced stabilization layer, each frame of animated displacement is fine-tuned to reduce flickering while preserving the high-frequency details of the skin.
3. Better Control for Performance-Driven Detail
One of the key improvements in this release is the added flexibility in how skin displacement maps respond during motion.
Artists now have the ability to use our hyperlook X maps and adjust the lookdev of the asset with multiple animated textures maps. This makes it easier to fine-tune facial features driven by expressions, like wrinkles, pore stretching, and muscle tension, allowing for a more lifelike performance. A detailed breakdown of the maps included with Hyperskin 4D maps are available further down in this post.
This evolution of Hyperskin 4D gives character artists and technical directors the freedom to refine the realism and personality of a digital performance, all while preserving top-tier quality and resolution.
From Static to Dynamic: A True Evolution
Here’s a comparison that highlights the key differences between static and dynamic displacement maps.
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Static displacement or normal maps offer limited realism as they don’t respond to motion or facial expressions.
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Dynamic displacement maps, however, evolve frame by frame, capturing subtle deformations and tension changes in the skin.
By using animated displacement and our other maps, we enhance realistic skin compression, stretching, and relaxation captured by CAS. The difference becomes especially clear in high-resolution comparisons. Where dynamic textures produce natural motion in skin folds, muscle areas, and micro-details that static textures simply cannot replicate.
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HyperSkin 4D Pipeline
HyperSkin 4D is the product of an expert collaboration between three industry leaders, combining performance capture, facial tracking, and surface-level texture technology.
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Clear Angle Studios – Specialists in high-fidelity performance capture using cutting-edge facial Dorothy scanning technology
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DI4D – Delivers world-class markerless mesh tracking for accurate facial movement.
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Symbiote Studio (powered by TexturingXYZ) - processes, enhances, and animates micro skin
details through proprietary Hyperskin tech, resulting in unmatched surface realism.
This integrated pipeline includes 2 sets of animated maps export with Hyperlook X.
These textures are fully compatible with modern production workflows, including Maya, Houdini, Unreal Engine, and more, ensuring seamless integration at every stage of production.
4D Enhancement
Standard Map Package
Optional Maps
Calibrated Displacement
This displacement map is fully calibrated and ready to use in the displacement shader slot.
Multi-channel Displacement
This displacement map uses a mid-value of 50 and splits frequency ranges across RGB: red for low, green for mid, and blue for high.
Utility
This map adds depth through concavity/convexity info and serves as a flexible base.
Multi-channel Morphological ID MSK
This RGB ID mask morphological separation map categorizes surface details: red for vertical wrinkles, green for horizontal wrinkles, blue for pores, and alpha for larger features like crevices
Multi-channel Morphological displacement
This RGB morphological separation map categorizes surface details: red for vertical wrinkles, green for horizontal wrinkles, blue for pores, and alpha for larger features.
Normal Map
This tangent space normal map is designed for real-time applications and closely resembles the calibrated displacement map.
Multi-channel Normal Map
Three normal maps, Each representing different frequency ranges: low, mid, and high. The maps are fully complementary with no overlap, allowing precise control of normal weights by frequency.
Cavity
This cavity map highlights small surface recesses and crevices, enhancing the appearance of fine details by emphasizing areas of occlusion.
Hemoglobin
A hemoglobin map simulates the appearance of blood under the skin by representing areas with higher blood flow or vascularity
Melanin
A melanin map simulates the distribution of melanin in the skin, using darker tones to represent areas with higher pigmentation. It could give the skin a tanner appearance
First version showcase at SIGGRAPH 2024
The original version of Hyperskin 4D made its debut at SIGGRAPH 2024, where it was hailed as a major breakthrough in 4D facial performance capture.
By enabling per-frame displacement and texture data, it made animated digital faces nearly indistinguishable from real human footage.
Showcasing the Results
Words can only go so far. To fully grasp what HyperSkin 4D can do, we’ve included ultra-high-resolution renders and turntables that spotlight:
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Unmatched Realism in Facial Capture
Hyperskin 4D brings unmatched realism to digital humans by capturing animated skin behavior from high-resolution scans.
Wrinkles, pores, and micro-expressions are preserved with precision, thanks to expression-based skin calibration
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Precision-Enhanced Maps & Advanced Stabilization
Thanks to refined calibration and advanced per-frame stabilization, Hyperskin 4D ensures consistent texture behavior over time.
This eliminates flickering, texture sliding, and common animation artifacts, resulting in a smoother and more realistic animation.
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Comprehensive Map Outputs with Hyperlook X
Artists are provided with a complete set of production-ready maps, including animated displacement, multichannel normals, utility maps, cavity, melanin, hemoglobin, morphological ID masks...
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Dynamic vs. Static Texture Mapping
Unlike traditional static textures, Hyperskin 4D offers dynamic, frame-by-frame texture evolution based on our client data. This brings an extra layer of realism to motion by accurately amplified skin stretching, compression, and expression-driven surface deformations.
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Seamless Integration Into VFX and Game Pipelines
Hyperskin 4D is designed to integrate seamlessly into production workflows across visual effects studios, feature films, TV series, high-end commercials, and cinematic video games.
Its flexibility and consistency make it the perfect solution for any project that demands ultra-realistic digital humans.
Let’s Work Together!
If you're looking to elevate your digital human projects with the most advanced skin texture animation on the market, we’d love to collaborate.
👉 Get in touch with our team to bring Hyperskin 4D to your production.
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Ready to bring your characters to life? Contact us below and let’s make it happen!
We pride ourselves on providing quality customer service. Our team is always available to answer any questions you may have and to ensure that you are completely satisfied with the end result.
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