
Toonify Yourself - dsr12
https://toonify.justinpinkney.com/
======
trabant00
The examples on the landing page are not representative of the quality of the
service.

Try it with internet photos of people. What it does is just morph the face a
little: larger eyes, shorter forehead, elephant ears, narrow and taller mouth.
The only thing it tries to generate is hair, and it fails horribly at it if
you try with completely bald heads.

------
tombert
I decided to make this go full circle and grabbed a picture from
thispersondoesnotexist.com, and toonified it. It worked fine.

I for one welcome the singularity and all it entails.

~~~
egfx
Interesting idea!

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madcow2011
Good grief! I know I'm not Prince Charming but I was hoping for slightly less
Shrek in mine. I think I'll be going back on that diet...

~~~
axaxs
LOL. My wife said "you look like the dad from the Croods." It definitely seems
to over caveman a bit, but I liked it!

~~~
geocrasher
I had the same experience. I'm not _quite_ that much of a knuckle dragger.

[https://imgur.com/a/4YqFPVl](https://imgur.com/a/4YqFPVl)

~~~
thih9
> If you're seeing this message, that means JavaScript has been disabled on
> your browser, please enable JS to make Imgur work.

That surprised me, I didn't expect an image hosting website to require JS.

~~~
jwilk
[https://i.imgur.com/2V5OlVz.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/2V5OlVz.jpg) should work
better.

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wombatmobile
The Toonify produces avatars which match the source photo in terms of detail
and feature correspondence. In that regard, at first take, the algorithm might
appear to be working at a near pixel level of granularity. However, at least
in the examples I tried, there is a loss of similarity and recognisability, to
the extent that I don't think my friends would get that my avatar is me, and I
don't get that feeling about the avatars generated from pictures of my
friends. For that reason, I am wondering if the algorithm is based on feature
recognition (eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows etc), followed by a feature level of
replacement/distortion rather than pixel level?

The celebrity examples might be a different case in terms of our recognition
sentiment, because of their familiarity, and the juxtaposition of a number of
phenotypically diverse celebrities in one set, which gives a correspondence in
the diversity of the input set and the output set.

What modifications would be required to the algorithm to score consistently
higher in facial recognition of the avatar by people who view the avatar cold
without access to the original photo?

I'm asking rhetorically, of course. Such research might take a long time.
Toonify looks like a good foundation for what might be an open ended project.

~~~
ath92
This is explained in more detail here: [https://www.justinpinkney.com/toonify-
yourself/](https://www.justinpinkney.com/toonify-yourself/)

Specifically, there's this snippet: "These StyleGAN face models can produce a
huge diversity of faces and it’s actually possible to find basically any face
inside the model. It’s actually a straight forward process to search for any
image of a face in the model. So given an example image you want to find you
can find a “code” (aka latent vector) which, when given as an input to the
model, will produce an output which looks almost exactly like the face you’re
looking for."

So it seems like they first generate an image that is similar to yours with
one model, and then translate that too its more cartoony counterpart.

------
marvindanig
Ah! Gets excited.

1\. Clicks on the browse button to find a good selfie.

2\. Uploads the pic to Toonify.

3\. Clicks on 'Toonify' button:

> Failed: Didn't find any faces in the supplied image.

Ack what? Ok. The machine is still learning.

(P.S: I like the project though. Hope it will improve over time. But
toonification of any pic without deep learning/machine learning thrown into
the mix is already a solved problem, no?)

~~~
justinpinkney
We're using dlib's frontal face detector for the face detection. It's ok, but
certainly not state of the art, maybe in the future I'll find a better face
detector...

~~~
sillysaurusx
The way I solved this for Faceweave is, if no face detected, let the operation
proceed anyway. This gives the user the ability to line up the face
themselves.

The logic is basically: ask dlib for face landmarks; if no landmarks, resize
image to 1024x1024 and proceed; otherwise align face.

If you happen to like lisp: [https://github.com/shawwn/stylegan-
server/blob/10c396fa2ef07...](https://github.com/shawwn/stylegan-
server/blob/10c396fa2ef076ff4078a22a9a9be4a2b43c434e/repl-newest.l#L522-L529)

Also, congratulations on launching this! Super exciting.

Readers, if you use twitter, be sure to follow the creators:

Justin [https://twitter.com/Buntworthy](https://twitter.com/Buntworthy)

Doron [https://twitter.com/Norod78](https://twitter.com/Norod78)

Been following them for like twenty years now. They tweet a bunch of awesome
stuff about ML, and stylegan in particular.

------
3gg
"We don't store any of the images uploaded or generated. Once the
toonification has finished running no images are kept on our systems."

Sure, then don't hide an otherwise perfectly normal computer program under a
random web interface.

~~~
derefr
A perfectly-normal program that might only load/run on a Google Cloud TPU or a
Titan V, mind you; and probably one held together with tape and bailing wire
(hardcoded paths, "works on my machine", an undocumented and unreproducable
build env, etc.)

Y'know, the same reason that the "perfectly normal computer programs" that
generate the data for scientific journal papers aren't usually published.

~~~
3gg
I understand that some networks might require the compute power that you
mention, but this just seems like an average CNN mapping images to Disney
characters. And I don't have much experience on that front, but like qayxc
said, this should run fine on consumer hardware.

And yeah, many journal papers suck specifically for the reason that their
results are not reproducible.

------
cHaOs667
Does someone remember "Kai's Power Tools"? The sample pictures instantly
reminded me of that...

~~~
wsc981
I remember reading reviews on this app (KPT Bryce [0]) in MacFormat in the 90s
or so. The software seemed to use a really unique UI for development when
compared to most creative Mac apps of that time.

\---

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_\(software\))

------
jiofih
It seems to turn every male into an Indian.

~~~
nmstoker
Presumably there is some kind of bias in the training set causing this. It
does seem subtle but noticeable, although I wouldn't say it's just the males.

------
bovermyer
It doesn't appear to do well with glasses or baldness.

~~~
esperent
Or winking, or beards.

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jtsiskin
@OP, for images from iOS, portrait photos are uploaded in landscape mode, and
you need to rotate them before the image pipeline.

Currently I believe that is what is causing your facial detection step to
fail.

If you want to try this on iOS, rotate your phone clockwise 90 degrees then
take a photo.

~~~
justinpinkney
Yes, I'd just come to that conclusion too. (Thanks for the tip anyway). I've
just pushed an update so this should work now.

------
DoofusOfDeath
The visual style reminds me somewhat of "Team America: World Police".

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muhuk
None of the `toonified` images shown on the page looks like the person in the
photo.

OTOH I could immediately guess if you've shown me one of these photos:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=leonardo+di+caprio+toon&iax=images...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=leonardo+di+caprio+toon&iax=images&ia=images)

~~~
OJFord
Yeah, I was hoping it was going to be trained on photo -> cartoon of same
subject by some known cartoonist. Could be a fun profile photo that makes it
look like x paper's cartoonist has thought you significant enough to warrant a
cartoon.

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jmpman
Not sure what models you trained against, but my wife looks like a Kardashian.
Think I can see Ray J behind her.

I look like a drunk Simpson... Barney.

Spot on!!

------
civilian
What gets demo'd on the developer's laptop: [Idris Elba]

What gets shipped to production: [Toonified Idris Elba]

[https://assets.justinpinkney.com/toonify/images/vllkyt5r43p1...](https://assets.justinpinkney.com/toonify/images/vllkyt5r43p1p4tk7_01.jpg)

------
etaioinshrdlu
Also available here, [https://deepai.org/machine-learning-
model/toonify](https://deepai.org/machine-learning-model/toonify)

------
ebg13
There are two plausible measures of success for something like this:

1) Whether the generated character is readily identifiable by an observer on
its own.

2) Whether the generated character is a reasonable manifestation of the chosen
art style.

I think it does a reasonable job of #2 and a mediocre job on average of #1. I
think greater eyebrow variability would help some so that it doesn't look like
all the women get "woman's pencil eyebrow" and all the men get "man's
extremely bushy eyebrow".

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aaron695
I know HN is not normal, but I immediately tried my pets since I'm not happy
to give out photos.

Didn't work, it can't find the face.

Otherwise it worked ok on the fascist leaders I tried. Black and white got
color added. And one photo had an artefact put on top of both the original and
the Toonify, a mirror of the top of the image to fill space perhaps?

Well done.

Also Startup idea, facial recognition for pets and sell the data to the
Russians for addition tracking ability on people through proxies.

------
Sophistifunk
Welp, that'll replace the whale in me nightmares.

~~~
dvtrn
...wait what. I need to know more about these nightmares that involves
_whales_. Did you stumble across a particularly vivid bit of whaler fan
fiction that combined Melville with Lovecraft or something?

~~~
lacker
[https://imgur.com/r/TheSimpsons/0F2Kvyu](https://imgur.com/r/TheSimpsons/0F2Kvyu)

------
Theodores
This works really well when it comes to making scary pictures of my three year
old niece.

I look forward to seeing if she recognises herself and what she thinks. I
don't believe any adult likes a cartoon version of themselves, rarely are
critiques truly flattering, a true cartoon hurts!

I tried cartoonifying my niece's favourite cartoon characters. The program
failed. So you can't toonify a toon.

------
pastaking
This is so cool! I'm curious, how much does it cost to run a server that does
deep learning inference on the scale of hugged-by-hn-frontpage?

------
justinpinkney
If people are still interested the site now back up and free to use!

------
Kattywumpus
> _We don 't store any of the images uploaded or generated. Once the
> toonification has finished running no images are kept on our systems._

I imagine this is all in good fun, but this disclaimer doesn't rule out data
being derived from your face and stored or sold later.

~~~
justinpinkney
I made this and can assure you I'm not doing anything with the images. This is
just a silly side project of mine (along with Doron). I'm certainly not hoping
to gain any money or data from it!

~~~
esperent
You should probably put this in the disclaimer. These days I assume all toys
like this are data gathering tools in disguise. And I'm right more often than
not.

~~~
throwawaynothx
He won't do that. then he cant sell the data later.

~~~
esperent
Could he do that though? I mean, hypothetically. I'm based in the EU so GDPR
applies, and a picture of my face is definitely personally identifying info.
So, unless I clicked something saying I consent to the data be stored/sold, I
assume it would be illegal to do so.

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dandigangi
No words can describe the nightmare this just created out of my pictures.
Hahahah wtf.

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cvhashim
I tried it. But now I’m sure my photo will be used to forge passports.

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Kaytaro
I'll be really impressed when one of these that actually retains some of the
original facial features instead of just replacing them entirely. Cool side
project though.

------
smegger001
Every image I tried got a "Failed: Didn't find any faces in the supplied
image." Maybe it my images maybe the server has been slashdoted idk

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kxter
I look awful! LOL guess i dont have a future as a toon. LOL

~~~
runawaybottle
Not looking good here either, for once I’m happy with my original photo.

Oddly enough, I bet if the output was designed to always generate more
attractive features (ala insta filters), this will take off.

Maybe I don’t high cheekbones or a chiseled jaw, but lie to me dammit!

Just a tip.

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andreygrehov
Super fun! Would it be possible to do the opposite? :)

~~~
redeux
Something like this?

[https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/](https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/)

~~~
andreygrehov
I was more curious about reversing Toonify Yourself's input/output–upload a
toon and get a real person's face back.

------
mumblemumble
If you need some nightmare fuel, try running the output back through for
another round of toonification four or five more times.

~~~
parhamn
I was curious so I ran the Tim Allen on til it couldn't find a face anymore (4
times): [https://imgur.com/d1FlNVh](https://imgur.com/d1FlNVh)

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p2hari
Loved the results. Worked fine for me. Tried with a 28Kb JPEG image with lot
of noise, but turned out good.

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_mkef
I know the answer is no, but anyway I could generate a full-blown character
model from this ?

~~~
sillysaurusx
Surprisingly yes!

Or rather, the answer is "no" right now, but I will bet you $500 that it'll be
"yes" within ... hm ... 2 years max. And if I lower my bet to $100, I'll do 1
year max.

Let's just say it's a very lucrative, very active area of research.

One observation: facial detection gives you landmarks, and those landmarks are
essentially UVs for a texture. So if you do that process repeatedly, and
rotate the face slightly using latent directions, then you can back-project
the result onto a 2D texture.

EDIT: Some leads:
[https://twitter.com/Zergfriend/status/1283954193946906625](https://twitter.com/Zergfriend/status/1283954193946906625)

A video from July:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvk3dtdeXBE&ab_channel=Compu...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvk3dtdeXBE&ab_channel=ComputerVisionFoundationVideos)

And I saw someone use Unity to learn normal+bump+diffuse+ambient occlusion
maps using ML, but sadly haven't been able to find the link yet.

This search gives lots of useful results:
[https://twitter.com/search?q=stylegan%20texture&src=typed_qu...](https://twitter.com/search?q=stylegan%20texture&src=typed_query)

~~~
_mkef
Very very cool. I could see this being intergrated into something like
fortnight in the very near future.

If I was a better coder I'd being trying to get an Epic Grant for this. I
can't imagine getting a full blown model would take more than a few hundred
thousand

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JakeStone
That was amusing. I sort of look like I should be an extra in "Braveheart"

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tmabraham
Have you tried using an unpaired image-to-image translation algorithm, like
CycleGANs?

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dgellow
Oh god, it has difficulty to deal with long beard! My result is terrifying!

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shannifin
It made me look rather a bit horrifying! But fun stuff, nice work!

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d883kd8
It likes to point the eyes in different directions

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gverrilla
Rate Exceeded :(

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shaftway
Beardy people end up looking..... scary.

~~~
_kst_
I saw that too. I have a rather long beard, and my toonified photo was --
horrifying.

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recursive
Feature request: webcam support.

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KoenDG
Oh hey, more data gathering.

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mcdirty
This shit is scary

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sabujp
glasses mess it up

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gotostatement
this is cute, but to be honest, the celebrity ones are pretty bad - they don't
really look like the person nor capture their spirit, with a few exceptions:
Tim Allen and Gal Gadot are quite good and Will Smith is alright. Some
especially bad ones: Leo DiCaprio, Barack Obama, Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves,
Idris Elba, Ryan Gosling, Robert DeNiro

~~~
mattcaldwell
I think Leo and Scarlett are pretty bad, but the other ones seem okay?

~~~
mattcaldwell
Oh, I didn't click "more." Still, I think most of them look reasonably okay.
Pretty cool!

------
throwawaynothx
OMG if you toonify a toonified image it will give you nightmares this is a
toonified toonified toon [https://ibb.co/PczgpH1](https://ibb.co/PczgpH1)

~~~
imwillofficial
Like an Escher painting.

