
Selfie 2 Waifu - guu
https://twitter.com/tkasasagi/status/1250427941567094786
======
guu
Twitter thread with examples:

[https://twitter.com/tkasasagi/status/1250427941567094786](https://twitter.com/tkasasagi/status/1250427941567094786)

~~~
jchw
As usual for this sort of thing, the results vary all the way from
“impressive” to “absolutely horrific.” I will say it seems to work quite well
for many of the women in the thread.

~~~
wila
It can work for men OK too.

Bumped into this about a week ago and after quite a few tries it looked pretty
good.

Figured to toss a few dollars to the person who created this via the paypal
link at their site. But then paypal told me: "Currently PayPal accounts in
China are only able to send payments. This recipient is not eligible to
receive funds."

Meh..

Emailed the author to inform them and they mused about using bitcoin, but that
the threshold is too high for casual users.

Perhaps time to reconsider.

~~~
on_and_off
Sigh, one more reason why we really need a strong paypal competitor.

~~~
slowmovintarget
The problem there is not PayPal. It is the company formerly named GoPay, a
Chinese company, that necessarily adheres to Chinese law.

------
dang
The submitted URL was
[https://waifu.lofiu.com/index.html](https://waifu.lofiu.com/index.html).
Since the thread is filling up with complaints about redirects, spam, and
malware, we've changed the URL for now to the one mentioned here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23032129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23032129).
If the original site settles down, we can change it back.

------
uvw
I get redirected to a spam website from this page.

[https://postimg.cc/svwnR4rK](https://postimg.cc/svwnR4rK)

~~~
qubex
So do I. Do you have any idea what it was meant to be?

~~~
jrockway
You upload a picture of yourself, and it returns an anime-style version of
that picture.

------
the8472
_> The selfie dataset contains 46,836 selfie images annotated with 36
different attributes. We only use photos of females as training data and test
data. The size of the training dataset is 3400,and that of the test dataset is
100, with the image size of 256 x 256. The size of the training dataset is
3400,and that of the test dataset is 100, with the image size of 256 x 256.
For the anime dataset, we havefirstly retrieved 69,926 animation character
images from Anime-Planet1. Among those images,27,023 face images are extracted
by using an anime-face detector2._

These seem tiny, don't NNs need more samples to achieve decent quality?

~~~
rrobukef
The CycleGAN datasets [1] all have less than 10k images. The two largest have
10,345 images and 5,129 images, the rest (like the famous horses2zebras) have
less than 3k.

[1]
[https://github.com/junyanz/CycleGAN#datasets](https://github.com/junyanz/CycleGAN#datasets)

------
bloopernova
One day people will have computers embedded into their optic and auditory
nerves.

They will quite literally see a fantasy world, with filters and augmented
reality changing everything they perceive.

Deep fakes and 3D transforms will mean any horny people can see anyone they
want to naked. Other people will be able to live in a complete Lord of the
Rings fantasy world with dragons, magic, elves and orcs.

~~~
lanius
This concept is very entertaining. The PS3 game Haze and Black Mirror episode
Men Against Fire have similar premises. Are there any other works of media
exploring this?

~~~
Jetrel
One of the more famous ones was the classic game (now, series) Syndicate. The
core premise was exactly as described above - a chip that would get wired into
the brain to alter all sensory perception. The idea was that the world in the
setting had become awful enough that this level of personal surrender was no
longer outrageous - people were primarily just altering the perception to be
"nicer".

The core plot of the game then assumed that once a critical percentage of
people had these, it was a viable tool for criminal organizations to engage in
massive campaigns of thought control and overthrow the governments of
countries all over the world, essentially replacing states entirely.

~~~
Kiro
Illustrated in the Syndicate Wars intro:
[https://youtu.be/CrruSboN1bQ](https://youtu.be/CrruSboN1bQ)

------
selfie2waifu
Already clean some inappropiate ads, sorry for that. Should be clean to visit
now.

~~~
colanderman
I am still getting tons of spanmy popups when I click "take a selfie".

------
Dimo24
Attention! This is a dangerous site. Don’t click it as it linked to numerous
malware applications— at least 6 viruses there. For public interest.

------
chance_state
The Github page has a lot more information:
[https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT](https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT)

Might be worth changing the link to this.

~~~
bentcorner
So, as someone with literally no experience with using this type of software,
how do I go about self-hosting this? What are the hardware requirements?

~~~
walrus
The following instructions are for Linux or macOS. It may work on Windows too,
but I'm not very experienced with Windows. No special hardware is required
(you can run it on a CPU; no GPU needed).

Install pyenv[0] and pyenv-virtualenv[1]. Clone the repo and set up an
environment:

    
    
      git clone https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT
      cd UGATIT
      pyenv install 3.6.10  # [2]
      pyenv virtualenv 3.6.10 UGATIT
      pyenv local UGATIT
      pyenv activate
      pip install opencv-python==4.2.0.34 tensorflow==1.14.0
    

Download the pretrained weights from
[https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT/issues/50#issuecomment-53...](https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT/issues/50#issuecomment-531489641).
Extract them:

    
    
      tar xf ugatit100.tar.xz
      mkdir checkpoint
      mv UGATIT_selfie2anime* checkpoint
      mkdir -p dataset/selfie2anime/{train,test}{A,B}
    

Crop your images in a 1:1 aspect ratio so that they contain only the head.
Place them in the dataset/selfie2anime/testA/ directory. Run the program:

    
    
      python main.py --dataset selfie2anime --phase test
    

Open results/*/index.html in your browser to see the results.

[0]
[https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv#installation](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv#installation)

[1] [https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv-
virtualenv#installation](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv-
virtualenv#installation)

[2] Other versions may work, but this is the version mentioned in
[https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT#requirements](https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT#requirements)

~~~
bentcorner
Thank you so much! I'll give this a crack on windows and see how it turns out.

~~~
bentcorner
I got it working via WSL on windows. Thanks!

------
kaskavalci
I would be very careful with sending data here as the website has no Privacy
Policy. We don't know how this data is being used.

This website however, present a Privacy Policy:
[https://selfie2anime.com/](https://selfie2anime.com/)

I am not promoting one site or another. I did not read the PP of the
selfie2anime.com either.

You can check the other implementations here (currently only two):

[https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT#web-
page](https://github.com/taki0112/UGATIT#web-page)

~~~
codegladiator
> We don't know how this data is being used

what can possibly go wrong ? or just paranoid ?

~~~
netsharc
Hmm, I just tried this with a few pictures, including one of mine. I forgot
about all the "your selfies are being data-mined by the bad guys!" stories.

Ever heard of browser fingerprinting? If this site is doing it, now it has my
IP, my browser fingerprint, and my face (as well as some friends' faces...).
Search for my face on Facebook and they have my name too. Sell to marketer.

~~~
zimpenfish
> Search for my face on Facebook and they have my name too. Sell to marketer.

Spoiler: Clearview already did this. And possibly others we haven't yet heard
of because they've been smart.

------
eanzenberg
Every photo I upload keeps getting rotated the wrong way. Oh well.

~~~
TheCoreh
If you're on your phone, take a screenshot of the photo to "bake" the rotation
in

~~~
nitwit005
This is quite a useful tip. A lot of things can't handle the rotation
metadata.

------
bArray
The results: I wasn't impressed with the results, it seemed like I could have
done better using some OpenCV and first principle algorithms. The examples
they give are excellent, but when trying them they are awful.

The viruses: I didn't see all these viruses people were talking about, the
software worked "as intended" for me without the redirects. There was no
advertising on the page either... I run with uBlock Origin in Chromium.

The dataset: Where do these images come from? These seem like the sorts of
pictures that might be uploaded to some older social media website, like Bebo
or something.

2 cents: Personally I would like to try and do some work with a dataset that
has a 1:1 mapping of person to character, but that would require artists and
quite a bit of money. I was thinking that you could build out such a database
for free by randomly matching anime characters and real pictures together and
have a human rate closeness - then train a network based on these ratings.

~~~
zimpenfish
> it seemed like I could have done better using some OpenCV and first
> principle algorithms

I am happy to volunteer a whole bunch of images (of me, sadly) as a test when
you get this up and running.

------
jrockway
Mine looks really good.

One wonders if sites like this exist to link faces to IP addresses, though.
Get someone to upload a selfie from their computer, then you can add it to
your database. Share on Facebook and Twitter, and they know your socials. Next
time you walk into a store (post-mask era anyway), they find you in the
database, and can see if you've visited their website or not, who your friends
are, what sort of things you're interested in, etc.

I'm almost surprised that this isn't more common, now that I think about it.

Edit to add: I had to flag this link. The site is now redirecting to malware.
I guess people did in fact want that database!

~~~
ALittleLight
They link to their GitHub project. I hope to try it out locally this weekend.

~~~
Timpy
I see the taki0112/UGATIT github project that it's based on but I don't see
the project itself linked anywhere. I could easily be missing it though.

------
dudus
I couldn't try because it has some of the most aggressive ads i've ever seen.
After I upload a pic it says my phone needs cleaning and sends me to a
cleaning app on the play store. No time to check the results.

------
ge96
Somewhat related someone made this anime character generator I think it's
pretty impressive make.girls.moe

Can be a time sink as you keep pressing generate over and over.

~~~
softwarejosh
thiswaifudoesntexist is better me thinks

~~~
ge96
oh that's interesting and it produces a little story.

I don't know in the back of my mind if I ever really get into that personal
assistant thing and want a wrapper/face around it, this would be interesting.
Sadly many of the voices are bad... but there are those services you can
sample a voice and get a voice to use for TTS, that could be something. Then
licensing issues but yeah and latency from API trips

------
ravenstine
My waifu has a beard.

~~~
inetsee
My waifu merged my moustache with the shadow under my nose. That part is
horrible; the rest is OK?

I'm tempted to edit my photo some, then resubmit it to see if it turns out
better. It looks like it could be quite amusing.

------
mikewhy
Would love to get a chance to actually see the result, each time I scroll down
to it on mobile I'm sent to a disgusting chain of ad redirects.

------
chrisweekly
On iOS (FF or Safari) this site is a spammy nightmare.

------
econcon
Put some donation links (PayPal/bitcoin/patreon), try using teir 1 ad
companies like Google AdSense and if they don't accept you, try something like
native ads (outbrain)

I can understand how such GPU intensive website can be difficult to support
for a creator.

------
Dimo24
Attention! This is a malware page— don’t click it. It directs to host of
viruses, to me at least 6.

------
RyJones
I gave both of them a whirl[0]. The second one is OK?

[0]:
[https://blog.ryjones.org/2020/04/30/ML](https://blog.ryjones.org/2020/04/30/ML)

------
0x8BADF00D
There seems to be a lot of flattening and smoothing going on, not unlike the
art style of anime characters with no discernible nose.

------
klmadfejno
A few casual observations:

* Looks like the expression is almost always the same.

* The backgrounds seem remarkably well replicated in many of these.

~~~
dnautics
did you see the one with gandhi in the background? impressive.

~~~
klmadfejno
I'm actually inclined to say that's less impressive because the model should
be good at faces. On the other hand, the model doesn't seem to work when
multiple people are in the picture. I'm wondering if somehow the gandhi face
was recognized as not being a person in the picture, and was animeitized using
a similar but different logic.

~~~
dnautics
a good point.

------
chirag64
It gave me scary results when I uploaded a few selfies that were black & white
(grayscale)

------
WhyNotHugo
I tried a few dozen selfies of myself with no luck. Maybe it's the beard? :(

------
theBashShell
results can be impressive if you look somewhat Asian

------
ChrisArchitect
what's with the waifu thing, why not just call this Selfie2Anime/Manga or
whatever.

~~~
kuroguro
It's an inside joke of the (western) anime community - cute anime girls ==
"waifus", as in you'd like to marry her.

[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Waifu](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Waifu)

I'm guessing the author wanted this to be aimed at people who get the joke
and/or say that the project shouldn't be taken too seriously by using a meme
in the title.

------
tdhttt
522 in Southern California

------
lwansbrough
429 too many weebs

------
snvzz
Proves "2d" is better than "3d".

------
wojciii
My waifu was made by a dirty hippie on LSD.

