Storage medium having stored information processing program therein, information processing apparatus, information processing method, and information processing system

An information processing apparatus which includes an imaging device and renders one or more objects appearing in a virtual space, the information processing apparatus comprising:

• storage;
• and
• at least one processor communicatively coupled to the storage and configured to:
• store face characteristic data indicating a characteristic of a face included in a first taken image obtained by previous capturing;
• store, as a number of selection times, a number of times which the stored face characteristic data is selected, such that the number of times corresponds to each piece of the face characteristic data;
• and
• adapt a rendering process, which is initialized to make each of the objects move according to a predetermined motion pattern previously stored in a memory, to an identified characteristic of a face included in a second taken image obtained from the imaging device, wherein the adapting includes:
• detecting the characteristic of the face included in the second taken image;
• when the characteristic of the face is detected in the second image, selecting a piece of the face characteristic data which corresponds to the detected characteristic of the face from the stored face characteristic data and updating the stored number of selection times which corresponds to the selected piece of the face characteristic data;
• and
• controlling, on the basis of the selected piece of the face characteristic data and the number of selection times corresponding to the selected piece of the face characteristic data, a motion of each object in the rendering process so as to be a motion performed in accordance with the selected piece of the face characteristic data instead of the motion performed in accordance with the predetermined motion pattern when not adapting the initialized rendering process to the identified characteristic.

An information processing method which is performed in an information processing apparatus which includes an imaging device and renders one or more objects appearing in a virtual space, the information processing method comprising:

• storing face characteristic data indicating a characteristic of a face included in a first taken image obtained by previous capturing;
• storing, as a number of selection times, a number of times which the stored face characteristic data is selected, such that the number of times corresponds to each piece of the face characteristic data;
• and
• adapting a rendering process, which is initialized to make each of the objects move according to a predetermined motion pattern that is previously stored in a memory, to an identified characteristic of a face included in a second taken image obtained from the imaging device, wherein the adapting includes:
• detecting the characteristic of the face included in the second taken image;
• when the characteristic of the face is detected in the second image, selecting a piece of the face characteristic data corresponding to the detected characteristic of the face from among the stored face characteristic data and updating the stored number of selection times which corresponds to the selected piece of the face characteristic data;
• and
• controlling, on the basis of the selected piece of the face characteristic data and the number of selection times corresponding to the selected piece of the face characteristic data, a motion of each object in the initialized rendering process so as to be a motion performed in accordance with the selected piece of the face characteristic data instead of the motion performed in accordance with the predetermined motion pattern when not adapting the initialized rendering process to the identified characteristic.

An information processing system which includes an imaging device and renders one or more objects appearing in a virtual space, the information processing system comprising:

• face characteristic data storage configured to store face characteristic data indicating a characteristic of a face included in a first taken image obtained by previous capturing;
• and
• one or more processors communicatively coupled to the face characteristic data storage and configured to perform operations comprising:
• storing, as a number of selection times, a number of times which the stored face characteristic data is selected, such that the number of times corresponds to each piece of the face characteristic data;
• adapting a rendering process, which is initialized to make each of the objects move according to a predetermined motion pattern that is previously stored in a memory, to an identified characteristic of a face included in a second taken image obtained from the imaging device, wherein the adapting includes:
• detecting the characteristic of the face included in the second taken image;
• when the characteristic of the face is detected in the second image, selecting a piece of the face characteristic data corresponding to the characteristic of the detected face from the face characteristic data storage and updating the stored number of selection times which corresponds to the selected piece of the face characteristic data;
• and
• controlling, on the basis of the piece of the face characteristic data selected by the face characteristic data selector and the number of selection times corresponding to the selected piece of the face characteristic data, a motion of each object in the initialized rendering process so as to be a motion performed in accordance with the selected piece of the face characteristic data instead of the motion performed in accordance with the predetermined motion pattern when not adapting the initialized rendering process to the identified characteristic.

An apparatus comprising:

• an image capture device for capturing images;
• a storage device storing face characteristic data indicating a characteristic of a human face included in a first image obtained by previous capturing;
• a graphics generator for rendering an artificial graphical object in a virtual space for display;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to the image capture device and to the graphics generator, the at least one processor being configured to:
• store, as a number of selection times, a number of times which the stored face characteristic data is selected, such that the number of times corresponds to each piece of the face characteristic data;
• initialize a rendering process to move the rendered artificial object according to a predetermined motion pattern that is previously stored in a memory;
• analyze second images captured by the image capture device to detect human faces;
• in response to detection of a human face in captured second images, extracting position and/or orientation of one or more aspects of said detected human face corresponding to the face characteristic data stored in the storage device and update the stored number of selection times which corresponds to the extracted position and/or orientation of one or more aspects of said detected human face;
• and
• adapting the initialized rendering process to impart motion to the rendered artificial graphical object at least in part in response to the extracted position and/or orientation of aspects of the detected human face and the number of selection times corresponding to the selected piece of the face characteristic data in order to move the rendered artificial graphical object according to the extracted position and/or orientation of aspects of the detected human face instead of according to the predetermined motion pattern.