Show HN: BeSanta, Real time Santa Claus AI avatars on your iPhone

[redsh]

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/besanta-by-animato/id1658475271

I am the founder of animato.ai and just released "BeSanta", an iPhone app that you can use to create custom Santa Claus videos in real time, to bring some surprise and joy to your kids.

The Santa Claus characters were made with generative AI and run on the phone neural engine in 16ms or something like that.

Tired of the endless lines at the mall for meeting Santa Claus? Check it out :)

[lastofthemojito]

In the App Store this link says "Works on this iPhone" on my iPhone SE 2nd Gen. But when I download the app and run it I see ":( Animato can only work on iPhone 12 and above".

[redsh → lastofthemojito]

sorry about that! according to the spec the iPhone SE 2nd Gen has the A13 chip which is not the same as iPhone 12 (that has the A14 chip).

Unfortunately the newer phones have more neural network layers available and they are needed to meet the Santas Quality Certification.

I'll make it more clear in the description next release, thanks!

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP820?locale=en_US

[prngl]

Very cool! Love that it's about bringing joy to kids. Some of tech/AI feels soul-sucking at the moment. Can you tell us more about the technical challenges of making something like this run real-time locally? How do the methods compare to things like Apple's Animjois and TikTok's facial filters? And do you have plans to bring voice changes as well? Again, nice work!

[redsh → prngl]

thanks! those are photographs of non-existing Santas generated with diffusion models like Dall-E, Midjourney or SD, animated with a GAN-like architecture. There is no depth involved as for other methods you mention, just user-rgb-in -> Santas out.

There is a simple voice changer as post-processing but nothing too fancy.

[givinguflac]

Congrats on the launch! Seems to work well from the two minutes I spent playing with it!

[redsh → givinguflac]

thanks! sometimes models get kicked out of the neural engine and I'm investigating why. If you see the framerate to drop below 30fps, it might help to kill the app

[happyopossum]

Cool - seems to have a problem with my face/beard/something though - none of the avatars ever fully close their mouths, which makes for some very unsettling and unrealistic looking videos...

[redsh → happyopossum]

Interesting.. I noticed that too sometimes, it might help to improve lighting conditions and head pose (centered, and keeping the phone vertical and aligned with the face could also help)

[redsh]

Preview of the app https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Iq6nh2SOIR0

[xcsob]

Which generative AI model did you use?

[no_wizard]

Looks neat and I'll give it a go later this evening I think! My family sure likes it

I just have to say....I hope mall Santa isn't a thing. It always seemed problematic to me. I've heard bad stories from friends of Santa's being rude and smelling like cigarettes. Seems unpleasant!

[happyopossum → no_wizard]

> I hope mall Santa isn't a thing. It always seemed problematic to me.

Yup, bringing joy and wonder to millions of little kids is sooo problematic.

sigh.. this is why the world gets less fun every year.

[no_wizard → happyopossum]

I just can't say I personally had that experience. I'll admit to sampling bias on this one.

I am glad it is generally working out all around for most though!

[micromacrofoot → no_wizard]

Millions of kids have seen mall Santas over decades, it's very rarely problematic.

[jhong → micromacrofoot]

Yep we do it every year. It's also super expensive though, basically $50 for 2 minutes of time and a pic. Growing up my family could never afford it and I was sad as a kid that I didn't get to talk to Santa.

[redsh → no_wizard]

with this App you can be Santa yourself and avoid any cigarette problems! We're also going to release the tooth fairy and elves