
Software from Disney Research Seamlessly Blends Faces from Different Takes - protomyth
http://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/facedirector/
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stcredzero
Given the history of cinema, I predict that this will be used excessively by
some directors, who will fall into an "uncanny valley" the perceptive and
intelligent will find disturbing while others will find it to be a "super-
stimulus."

Then the industry will mature, and this will be used with greater subtlety.

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pavel_lishin
I'm not sure why the intelligent would be immune from finding that particular
thing a super-stimulus.

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stcredzero
Laugh tracks? The Transformers movies?

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dragonwriter
Yes, lots of people don't like those things (though the groups for each are
distinct but overlapping.)

I'm not convinced that there is much correlation with intelligence.

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agumonkey
Odd, not long ago French movie theaters were shown this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhYynZMwzYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhYynZMwzYs)

a blend of hand made compositing and simple warping. Technology is catching up
too fast.

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blackhaz
This reminds me of the automatic pitch correction (auto-tuning) in the recent
pop music. Hopefully this will not signify the dusk of the art of acting.

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tudorw
I don't think so, the actor is supplying the 'raw materials', this is another
tool for the director to achieve the truest representation of their vision,
actors might appreciate not having to do an entire retake due to one duff
line, they still get paid :)

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blackkettle
And the next step will be to show different variations to multiple focus
groups, then train a neural network to automatically select the set of
blending weights for the film that are projected to maximize revenue, thereby
automating the post production as well.

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tudorw
maybe, that sounds pretty dire though, how about interactive gaming where your
input affects the mood of the conversation without the start/stop clip style
used now.

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Gravityloss
So this can be used to "auto-happy" me on webcam meetings when I'm feeling
grumpy...

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KevanM
That's a wrap - don't worry we'll emote it in post.

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6stringmerc
Faces might be blending but the audio isn't exactly something I enjoy, pretty
wild that's how it sounds. Could surely pick a favorite audio track, or, a la
Max Martin, comp all the takes for material knowing the digital warp will be
passable. Slick technique, I'm definitely impressed with the the show of tech
and capability.

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warfangle
This was more focused on the video blending (and how it's synchronized with
the audio cues). The clipping is from a naïve audio speed algorithm (the other
naïve approach results in pitch shifting).

One thing this probably does give, though, is the necessary curve to output a
well-formed audio blend.

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boxy310
The mad + sad takes seemed to give a lot more emotional nuance than either of
them separate. I like this, but hope it doesn't become as over-abused as
autotune is.

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Strilanc
This is really impressive. I can't see any seams in the merged output, though
I do see the actors' eyes creepily going out of alignment (a fixable problem).

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martiuk
This is really interesting, but seeing the woman's right eye move down
slightly in the angry/sad scene had freaked me out a bit.

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briankwest
I sure hope that audio clicking and popping would also smooth out.

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ArkyBeagle
So now we have Autotune for movies.

Oh boy.

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S_A_P
The autotune of acting!!!

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dang
Url changed from [http://nofilmschool.com/2015/12/disney-research-software-
sea...](http://nofilmschool.com/2015/12/disney-research-software-seamlessly-
blend-faces-different-takes), which points to this.

