
Photo Wake-Up: 3D Character Animation from a Single Photo - lun4r
https://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/wakeup/
======
aantix
It’s so frustrating when the code or a binary isn’t released and we can’t play
with this ourselves.

What’s the point of publicly releasing a paper with no real proof of work?
They could be faking the algorithm.

~~~
IloveHN84
In this case, code is fake and the results are done with video editing

------
kennyadam
At first I thought it was something that could be done in real time. Like, you
walk up to any painting with the AR glasses on, do the gesture and it would
extract a figure and animate it. On closer inspection, the artworks are also
virtual in their example videos. I was hoping they would be real, it feel less
impressive when none of it is really present.

------
pndy
It's amazing but also creepy because characters still retain the non-animated
face and/or limbs like in Messi example; making faces moving seems to be
logical next step for this technology.

------
visarga
I'm wondering how they texture the backside of animated characters?

~~~
deepaksurti
Check out supplementary material [1].

The supplement mentions this about backside texturing:

``` Texturing the back of the body is more difficult, as we have no direct
observation of it. One approach is to sim- ply mirror the front texture onto
the back. This mirrored- texturing produces reasonable results in some cases
(e.g., arms), but undesirable results in others (face appears on the back of
the head). To address this problem, we allow the user to choose between
mirrored texturing or label-driven texture synthesis – “texture-by-numbers” –
on a part-by- part basis. ```

[1]
[https://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/wakeup/files/photo-...](https://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/wakeup/files/photo-
wakeup-supplemental-material.pdf)

~~~
fourthark
You can see this in effect in the Picasso AR demo at around 0:45 and 4:50

------
kamalkishor1991
did they release code also? I could not find any link anywhere?

------
nmstoker
Very impressive. Not to be a cynic, but how long before someone starts turning
people inappropriately into frog marching saluting Nazis?! Or giving them an
unfortunate Fortnite "bounce".

I haven't read the paper, but am curious how they get the face profile right
(given the information is absent in the 2D source). Perhaps they set that
manually or some kind of average face, but if it's off it would be quite
noticeable.

~~~
PavlovsCat
How long? 17 seconds.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G63goXc5MyU&t=17s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G63goXc5MyU&t=17s)

That's probably meant to be cute or optimistic, I know they're not making fun
of anything, but I still find it very tasteless.

Why not just use your own drawings and photos? I generally don't like how art
is often used for these kind of things.

~~~
PavlovsCat
That artwork is basically saying kids should be flying kites, rather than
being bombed by drones while they cry in terror.

I find playing around with that tasteless, to put it mildly and charitably,
and I said nothing about it, after seeing it and puking into my mouth a little
-- if walking on egg shells, and calling it tasteless to be generous, is
punished anway, I may as well be honest, and I'm still biting my tongue on
just how tacky CS meeting art is 99% of the time, that's tasteless too but in
the actual meaning of the word, just unskilled, garish, time and time again
demonstrating that developed art comes from developed persons, not from
developed tools -- right after the story was posted and there were no
comments. I just shook my head basically, kept it to myself. But when I later
saw the question of how long it'll take before someone does something
inappropriate with it, I just had to point it out.

What guideline was I violating? How was my comment not a contribution? If you
disagree with it being tasteless, if I overlooked or misrepresented something,
where are the words?

~~~
denerio-a
FWIW I think you’re completely correct. The use of that image was near as tone
deaf as I can imagine. It almost seems intentional.

With a very charitable interpretation it could be said that it’s a warning, a
harbinger of the callousnness with which this tech will be used - but the
reaction of this crowd to your comment is bizarre, and concerning.

Wtf HN. Any of ye silent downvoters want to outline where you’re coming from?

~~~
PavlovsCat
All I want for Christmas is up- and downvotes being displayed separately. I
don't care about the sum whatsoever. Thanks for hearing me.

~~~
goldenkey
I thought you brought an important inspection to what I had overlooked. And I
don't think it's reactionary to find the use of that image offensive. You're
right that CS needs to use art with a little more care because we aren't
insulated scientists - we are part of society and culture at large.

------
jibolso
This is neat. Very neat, good implementation and interesting applications.

------
pohl
I was surprised at how quickly I went from slack-jawed amazement to wondering
why the creators were so enamored with making a character run out of the frame
that they never demonstrated using this to animate in context.

~~~
stuntkite
I have a feeling that is because they are computer image developers and not
animators. I am in the same boat and have a great collection of animations I
pull from, but animation is a serious specific skill. Even hooking it to mocap
would be another crazy level. Most mocap is gross and needs cleanup, also it
would be a distraction from the point. In addition to all of that, by using
only a few specific animations it makes the examples easier to compare. Things
that look like confusing magic can be hard to quantify on presentation.

------
dlhavema
Looks super cool. I wonder if multiple subjects in the same photo could be
animated. I sorta expected that from the picture with the Beatles ( assuming
that gang of 4 Brittish looking guys was them )

~~~
DaveInTucson
The sequence beginning at 1:58 is (I think) a still from the _Hard Day 's
Night_ movie. The sequence beginning at 4:29 uses the Help! album cover

~~~
dlhavema
Which is a movie starring... the Beatles... so why did I get
corrected/downvoted?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day%27s_Night_(film)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day%27s_Night_\(film\))

------
peter_d_sherman
a-ha - Take On Me (Official Music Video)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914)

------
garfieldnate
I don't know if anyone else here has seen _The Ring_, but the little girl
walking out of the screen kind of freaked me out!

------
egfx
Oh great. Now we can make The Ring scene come alive. Merry Christmas.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
No thanks. 1:46 was creepy enough!

This is a really cool technique that posing interesting questions about how 3D
resources in the future will exist.

Will marketing companies release models and textures like we release different
image formats now? Are there grest uses for quickly making video or 3D from a
photo. IDK, really cool though.

------
Awtem
Great, now you can have your own custom video game avatar from a single
picture of yourself... gaming industry will love this

~~~
covercash
I imagine the porn industry will have a creative implementation of this
technology as well...

------
tugberkk
Am I the only one who is scared from these technological advances?

------
bsenftner
This is a series of known techniques assembled in a visually engaging manner,
but is ultimately just a dumb gimmick. * Ability to go from image to model -
multiple open source options * Ability to to from image to rigged figure model
- multiple open source options * motion capture animation playback - trivial
Unless this is instantaneous, which it is not, it's an attention seeking toy
with no original ip.

~~~
ricardobeat
Have you read the paper?

~~~
bsenftner
yes.

