Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-48). / This thesis addresses the problem of the lack of verisimilitude in animation. Since computer vision has been aimed at creating photo-realistic representations of environments and face recognition creates replicas of faces for recognition purposes, we research face recognition techniques to produce photo-realistic models of expressive faces that could be further developed and applied in animation. We use two methods that are commonly used in face recognition to gather information about the subject: 3D scanners and multiple 2D images. For the latter method, Maya is used for modeling. Both methods produced accurate 3D models for a neutral face, but Maya allowed us to manually build 3D models and was therefore more successful in creating exaggerated facial expressions. / by Tufool Al-Nuaimi. / M.Eng.