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Jacques LaMarche (January 9, 1960 - ) is an American author.

LaMarche grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and from a young age had aspired to become a writer. When he turned forty, similar to one of the characters in his first novel, From Petoskey to Prague, he quit his day job in the grocery industry to pursue writing full-time.

From Petoskey to Prague (later retitled Hiding From Hemingway) was published by Point Net Publishing in 2000. His second novel, The Potomac Circle, was published later that year. He also put together a collection of short stories, Fictional Numbers, in 2001. More recent novels include The Green Room (2003), Falling From Delaware (2005), and 60 to Life (2007), a work of creative non-fiction.

LaMarche currently lives in Petoskey, Michigan.

Photo-realistic talking avatars are photo animations of human faces from single photos with pre-recorded sound-tracks and expressions. Its main use is multimedia personal entertainment.

Technology

The technology used by some commercial services is based in creating 3D simulations of human heads and two principles:
*the same mesh topology can be morphed to recreate basic human expressions
*animations (motion tracks, in fact) can be transferred from mesh to mesh to match movements, expressions and acting gestures of the original acting mesh

The specification of the photographs required are common to virtual face recognition and reconstruction software based in face images: front look, mouth closed, relaxed expression, uniform lighting over all the face extension without shinning areas, over-exposition or hard contrasts of shadows.

Resulting animations convey a true sense of realism and believability but the convenience of using a single photo is also its main limitation; it doesn't model hair or head profiles as 3D scanner hardware stations and systems reverse engineering based on multiple calibrated photographs do.

In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Genesis Planet was created in the Mutara Sector from the material which comprised the Mutara Nebula when Khan Noonien Singh detonated the Genesis Device during a fierce battle with his old adversary, Admiral Kirk.

The Genesis Planet immediately became a galactic controversy, and Starfleet declared it off limits until the Federation Council decided what to do. In the meantime, the U.S.S. Grissom was dispatched with a scientific team that included the planet's co-creator, Dr. David Marcus, to carry out a thorough investigation.

Initial scans of the new planet indicated that all varieties of land and weather known to Earth were detected - all within a few hours walk of one another. Sector 1 had foliage in a fully developed state of growth and that the temperature was 22.2 degrees Celsius. Sector 2 had desert terrain, with minimal vegetation and a temperature of 39.4 °C. Sector 3 was made up of subtropical vegetation, although when they arrived the temperature was rapidly decreasing, leading to snow in the same sector.

They also detected Spock's coffin, which had soft-landed on the forming planet, and animal life forms. As David Marcus had told them that Genesis was not designed to create living creatures, he and Lt. Saavik decided to beam down for a closer look. Once on the planet surface they found an idyllic environment similar to the one that had been created in the cave in the Regula planetoid. They also detected low levels of radiation and discovered Spock's coffin covered in microbes lying amid ferns and plants.

Just as they thought that they had uncovered the mystery of the life forms, they heard a pained cry in the distance. As they set off in the direction of the cries, the ground beneath them began to shake and the temperature began to drop dramatically. It soon became clear that the Genesis Planet was not the paradise they had first thought.


Unstable protomatter, used in the matrix's construction by David Marcus in his haste to complete the Genesis Project, caused the ecosystems it had created to become dangerously erratic. This instability manifested itself first in an accelerated rate of growth, then in microclimatic upheavals. Instead of flourishing, the planet was rapidly disintegrating.

After walking through a snow blizzard, Marcus and Saavik found a young Vulcan child who could only have been Spock, somehow rejuvenated by the Genesis effect. Even more incredibly, as the planet aged, so did Spock; they appeared to be linked together, and the only way to stop this process was to remove him from the planet. However, before Saavik and Marcus could transport him aboard their ship, it was destroyed by a crew of Klingons led by Commander Kruge, who had learned of the Genesis Device and wanted to uncover its secrets because of its potential as a weapon.

When the U.S.S. Enterprise arrived, Marcus was murdered, and the Klingons captured the Enterprise - which Kirk had set to self-destruct.

With the planet reaching critical mass, Spock finally achieved the age he was just before his death on the Enterprise. Kruge, Klingon Commander, still alive on the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and angry at the death of his comrades, beamed down to the planet to confront Kirk. Despite the evidence all around them - the volcanic activity and the wild weather - he could not believe what David Marcus had told them: that Project Genesis was a failure.

While the planet tore itself apart, Kirk and Kruge fought to the death. Finally Kruge fell into a lava pit, and Kirk managed to beam up to the Klingon Bird-of-Prey - now under the control of his own crew. As they departed the mostly molten planet spewed a large eruption from the surface. The final fate of the planet was never shown.