Patent Document ID: 9761032
Application ID: 14443339

Base Claim:
1. An apparatus for rendering an avatar, comprising: one or more processors; and an avatar animation engine, to be operated by the one or more processors, to receive a plurality of facial motion parameters and a plurality of head gestures parameters, respectively associated with a face and a head of a user, and drive an avatar model with facial and skeleton animations to animate an avatar, employing at least a head bone and a torso bone connected at a joint and using the facial motion parameters and the head gestures parameters, to replicate a facial expression of the user on the avatar, that includes impact of head post rotation of the user; wherein the plurality of facial motion parameters depict facial action movements of the face, and the plurality of head gestures parameters depict head pose gestures of the head; wherein the avatar animation engine is to apply head rotation impact weights when driving the avatar model with facial and skeleton animations; and wherein the avatar animation engine is to apply head rotation impact weights from a head rotation impact weight map pre-generated employing the at least a head bone and a torso bone connected at a joint.

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Claim 9:
9. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a facial mesh tracker, operated by the one or more processors, to receive a plurality of image frames, detect, through the plurality of image frames, facial action movements of the face of the user and head pose gestures of the head of the user, and output the plurality of facial motion parameters to depict facial action movements detected, and the plurality of head gestures parameters to depict head pose gestures detected, all in real time; wherein detection of facial action movements and head pose gestures includes detection of inter-frame differences for a mouth and an eye on the face, and the head, based on pixel sampling of the image frames.