Morphing ‹ Graphics ‹ Art ‹ meridian.net.au
When Lon Chaney transformed into a werewolf in the 1941 horror movie classic The Wolf Man, the effect was done with makeup changes and a series of cross-dissolves during which the actor had to remain painfully motionless. Only after some half a century and the advent of digital image processing has a truly satisfactory improvement been made on the old cross-dissolve trick. Morphing as the new process has come to be called, is turning out to be more than just a clever gimmick; it's one of the most important video/filmmaking tools of the future.
— Peter Sorensen • Computer Graphics World • January 1992
How true this turned out to be. However, I don't think anyone could have predicted just how quickly what seemed to be state of the art in computer graphics was available on the desk top at home.
Within 12 months of Terminator 2 - Judgement Day, computer users at home were able to take their family snaps and morph them. Some of the easier to use commercial software that I use is called HSC Digital Morph. All the user has to do is define some source and destination points, and the software does the rest.
Below are some examples that I have put together by using this software. All animations are in the .avi format, and have been PKZIPed for faster downloading.