EA Sports Shows Off 3D Scanning Technology Used to Make FIFA 15 Players Look Lifelike, by 3D Printing Their Heads

3D scanning has been gaining steam within the 3D printing space, over the past several months. It seems as though every week we are reporting on yet another company that is using 3D scanning to create life-like replicas of people. 3D scanning technology has reached a point where it is now capable of creating digital replicas of faces, objects, and even internal body tissue.

For those familiar with EA Sports‘ video games, you can probably attest to the fact that each and every year, the players within their games become more and more realistic looking. Individual players look and move almost identical to how they appear in real life. This is a testament to the increasing precision in high tech 3D scanners.

For their upcoming game, EA Sports FIFA 15, which will be released on September 26th, the company decided to show off the tremendous abilities that their 3D scanners have, by teaming up with a company called 3DPRINTUK and having them 3D print four different Premier League players from scans that they have been using to model the players for their latest game.

Incredible EA Sports Scanning Technology (source: EA Sports)

“We love a challenge, and when we were given a timescale of just over a week to get them printed, we were given one (a challenge),” explained 3DPRINTUK to 3DPrint.com. “Heads are big you see, almost as big as our build tray, and we had to ensure that we could fulfill all of the other orders we had.”

EA Sports used their 3D scanning technology to model the heads of over 200 Premier League players, in order to make them appear more lifelike than ever before. In previous games players have looked similar to their real-life selves, but not almost identical, like you can expect to see when FIFA 15 hits the shelves later next month.

Tottenham Hotspur player Christian Eriksen, with his 3D printed head

“The players were scanned and, after some clever wizardry (it’s not as easy as scan and go), you have a complete 3D surface,” 3DPRINTUK told us. “If the scan is good, we will open it at our end and Magics, the STL correction software we use for checking files, will show a pretty perfect file which we can then add a thickness to. These heads were hollow, printed with a 4mm thickness, strong enough to drop on the floor and bounce with no damage to the players.”

Tottenham Hotspur player Christian Eriksen and his 3D printed head. (click to enlarge)

Once printed on 3DPRINTUK’s industrial level EOS P100 SLS 3D printers, using PA2200 Nylon, they were then painted by two top model painters. As you can see in the photos they came out amazing. The four players printed were Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, Man City’s Sergio Aguero, and Liverpool’s Ricky Lambert.

“This is the most high profile use of 3D scanning we have seen in the games’ industry and it was a great privilege to work on a project that shows the capabilities not only of 3D scanners and ever evolving software, but also of 3DPRINTUK and our trusty SLS printers,” explained 3DPRINTUK. “We were told that the players were going to be posing with their 3D printed heads over the course of the season.”

Tottenham Hotspur player Christian Eriksen with his painted 3D printed head (left) and unpainted (right).

EA Sports has always been a step ahead of the game, and this latest 3D scanning technology that they are utilizing, is without a doubt yet another example of such. This is why they have been able to remain atop the video game industry for 23 years. Let us know what you think about these scans, and the realistic looking 3D printed heads in the EA Sports 3D Scanning technology forum thread on 3DPB.com.  Check out the video showing the 3D scanning of some of the players below.

(image source: EA Sports)